# My first DIY



## twistedFrog (Sep 20, 2015)

So I just finished my first DIY enclosure.

It has been a long time in the making, I found the old TV cabinet on the side of the road many months ago and it was one of the ones with a cupboard on either side and all built as one piece it took two of us to get it in th car and home. I pulled it apart and removed the two side cupboards and cut holes in the sides and used the side cupboard doors fitted locks and got a piece of glass to fit the front. I fashioned framework in the bottom to have the drawers from the side cupboards underneath.
The enclosure itself is internal dimensions of 900 wide 1000 high 650 Deep. 

Then I found a heap of styrofoam from the side of the road and a friends new TV box and I did my first fake rock wall and hide and pond(water bowl) the water bowl has a plastic insert so I can do water change and clean with no fuss. 

Anyway it has taken many months to finish, doing little bits here and there, when I had time and found new materials. Everything, I mean all the main bits were sourced for free from the side of the road and what not. It took a while to come across a piece of glass big enough. Turned out it was a sliding window on Gumtree for free one pane was cracked but the other was Ok and big enough I only had to cut it down one side.

I did all the usual gap sealing and waterproofing everything. I waterproofed the fake rock wall etc. as well before applying the grout and paint and then sealing. That was the only real costs involved i.e. purchasing sealers grout and screws etc. Last pic is my Ant exploring for the first time his new home. Yeah I know this is overkill for an ant, but the plan is to put a bredli in here when I get one and at that stage I will replace the basking ledge with a bigger one. But till then my Ant gets to use this big playground. Sorry the pics are not the best taken on my phone


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## pinefamily (Sep 20, 2015)

Great job! My only suggestion is if you are going to put a bredli in there you might want to swap the styrofoam water bowl for something stronger.


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## twistedFrog (Sep 20, 2015)

pinefamily said:


> Great job! My only suggestion is if you are going to put a bredli in there you might want to swap the styrofoam water bowl for something stronger.


Thanks and yeah as far as the Bredli goes gotta first convince the other half we need another edition to the family. So is a ways down the track and i think I would gut it and do it minimal with a few levels and yeah a terracotta or the like bowl. I am busy collecting pieces to build another enclosure, so when I finish that I can be like, hey honey, we have this enclosure, shouldn't we put something in it haha (that'll work!) and by this stage I will have already tracked down the Bredli I would like tehe


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## pinefamily (Sep 21, 2015)

That's probably why we have so many reptiles; we both are mad about them.


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## vampstorso (Sep 21, 2015)

Once the other half sees how gentle bredli -generally- are, I'm sure they'll be easily convinced  


Enclosure looks great, particularly your rock wall!


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## ronhalling (Sep 21, 2015)

Fantastic job, shows what anyone can do if they just put in a bit of effort and imagination, love the skull you created and had to have a bit of a chuckle seeing your Stimmie crawling through it, made me think of some movies i have seen with the pit of skeletons with snakes crawling through them.  .........................Ron


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## Burgo89 (Sep 21, 2015)

Awesome job mate, looks great


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