The sun is shining, the birds started their evening chorus and I'm having dinner with my friend. Life is pretty good even if there is still a pandemic around.
After catching up with all the normal gossips, we get to a diy subject. She just bought a house and because she really enjoys it, she started making small changes around using her self taught skills.
And this is how it all began..
Because of her thrown away comment that the easiest thing which she did was to fit a cat flap for her cat, the next day I called Ben to say: if you buy a cat flap, I'll fit it in for you!
Bill looked at me in a very strange way and asked me how many times did I fit a cat flap before?
Obviously the answer was: 0 times!
Ok, ok, but how many times did you actually use a power tool before?
I'm getting annoyed now.. 0 times! But how hard can it be right?
Guess what, a week after Ben bought a cat flap and he was waiting very patiently for me to fit it in. I love friends who put their trust in me. Or did he think that Bill will do it maybe? Oh well, I said I'll do it so it's all good. Friday it is!
Friday
I want to say that the sun is shining, but not really. First week in August and we've been hit by heavy rain every single day. We decided that we'll have a cat flap party. It makes sense right?
Five friends having a drink on Friday evening, nothing wrong with this.. except that I had to fit a cat flap and I was getting cold feet!
The door
As a very skilled DIY person, first thing which I do is to take a look at the door in which I literally need to put a hole.
Monica, don't panic! It's just a door. Quick, read the instructions!
Instructions
Tape the template on the door
Drill 4 holes
Cut the hole
Check the cat flap goes in the hole
Drill 2 small holes to fix the cat flap in place with screws
Fit the cat flap
Start!
The instructions are straight forward except the fact that I've never drilled in my life and I've never used a jig saw to cut anything!
I'm getting nervous now but I'm here, I'll do it!
I put the template on the door and ask Bill to put a 12mm drill on. Now it's time to pray. I don't even know what this door is made of.
Let's drill!
What can I say, that was intense! I had no idea what I was doing! But it went through and I was very happy! The secret is actually not to apply pressure as I found out later, just press the button!
This is the masterpiece with the 4 holes drilled in the door. Ben was getting nervous.
Get the jigsaw out!
Bill, can you set the jigsaw with a 6mm blade please? Gosh, I sounded so professional!
I just vacuumed around the holes and then I took the jigsaw in my hands, looked at it, put it back down and asked for help.
So what direction is it going? Do I just insert the blade in one of the holes? But how do I make it go in a straigh line?
All of the suddend everything looked to be very complicated.
Come on, deep breath in, just listen to Bill, he is so good at explaining anything! Ok, I got it, the blade can cut on only one side, so that's the direction and the jigsaw has some markings on the side so I just need to align that with the line on the template.
I've done many complicated things with my actual skills like training a machine learning to recognize types of flowers or to differentiate between good and bad reviews written by various people but using an actual machine to cut in a straight line sounds horendous!
Here we go. The blade is in the first hole. I'm saying a little pray (it's fantastic how you remember God only when things are out of your control). Go!
This was harder than I expected. My hands are shaking! But the main thing is that I did it! First cut done. Only three to go and I'm done!
Reveal the hole
Ben! Come here! This part you need to do it! You need to push the cutting to reveal the hole! How exciting!
I must say, that was a success! And look who came at the door!
Fit the cat flap and you're done!
From here everything was very easy. I just had to drill two small holes and link the face of the cat flap to the back of it. This part was very easy. Let me show you the end result.
And this is a very happy DIY person!
Normally posts like this finish with a message like if you ever need a hand, please let me know, but no, sorry, if you need a hand, get a professional, I'm here just to have fun and I hope you did too.
Happy DIY to all!
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