ah...finally....custom cham cabinets =)

jandie

New Member
so...this project started back in december technically, with a friend who offered to build "stands" for the cham cages at the house.... not sure he really knew what he was getting in to... lol. ;) we didn't want to build new individual cages, but wanted something more like furniture to "display" in the house and we have now turned one of our other bedrooms into the "cham room". thot i'd include a couple pictures to show off the friend's handiwork. :D (sorry for picture quality)


(full shot of the girls stand- picture taken before we got the reptisun bulbs mounted)

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(full shot of the boys)

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(close up shot of 2 of the girls' cages)

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there's plenty of space around the back side of the cages, ability to angle the "heat" bulbs and to adjust the height to regulate the basking temps, and we (thanks, to a forum member selling his mistking:D) have 2 mistking pumps running - one for each side and a 5 gal. bucket with each for the misters. cement mixing tubs from home depot for the drainage (so no water actually in the cages...makes me a happy camper) with holes drilled into the white boards. the wood on the front is notched out for access to the bottom "doors" to help with cleaning. and the one part you can't really see from the pictures....under each cage, we have screened the inset "standing" area for each cage and used rebar (sp?) for support so that the plants can be lifted and the white boards pulled out for cleaning without having to pull out the entire cage or worry about escaping feeders/support under the plant/etc. admittedly, i would've preferred the cage level to be a little higher, but now that they are all in their own room....traffic is greatly reduced, so it's not as bad as the previous setup with the boys in the living room on coffee table height stands with the dogs running in and out...lol...(though...the boys seemed to adjust pretty well to it after some settling...haha)

all of it was hand-stained with 2 coats of weatherproofing wood stain with a 6-8 yr guarantee (i'm sure we'll wind up re-coating long before that....but, there's not a lot of water hitting any of the wood the way we have the misters and drainage set up)

all in all, ecstatically happy with the project and just wanted to share and brag on some good craftsmanship!!! :D
 
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Congrats! looks like a really nice set up. I actually just did one similar over my spring break, the biggest problem for me was the drainage since I hung my cages with brackets attached to the wall of one of my rooms. Your set up is worth showing off! :)
 
Really nice! How often do you have to empty the pans? Daily? Your set up looks like furniture. The boys get along without visual barriers? Cheers!
OOPS! now I see the sides are blacked out... lol
 
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thanks!!! it's amazing how much happier i am and i can already tell a difference in the chams in general with the increased misting (we didn't have the systems setup till we got these in)....now i just have to regulate the overall temp in the room. there's a fan...but talk about no problems whatsoever with keeping the humidity levels up!!! you can see if the first picture how we were doing draining before...into aluminum roasting pans and vacuuming out the water....eww!

lol...we use trash bags between the boys (and some of the girls just in case)...lol....disposable if they get dirty, not a problem if they get wet....the only thing i'm semi worried about is the visual of the boys and girls...not sure, with the width of the room, if the distance is enough or if we should consider like a screen barrier between the two....

we got them set up officially tues/weds of last week, and i haven't actually emptied the pans yet...
(family's been in town so it's time for a cleaning...lol) but they're nowhere near full or even halfway yet, with the misters running 3x day for 5 mins each time....

we really wanted it to look more like furniture if possible....though....we're in trouble if we ever add more! lol.


if anyone in the san diego area is wanting to do something like this or something on a smaller scale (maybe for individual cages), he might be willing to take on some smaller projects on the side. :)
 
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Congrats! looks like a really nice set up. I actually just did one similar over my spring break, the biggest problem for me was the drainage since I hung my cages with brackets attached to the wall of one of my rooms. Your set up is worth showing off! :)
you should post a couple pictures of yours...it took us forever to figure out exactly what was the best method for draining and i looked around at a lot of other examples....i'm hoping this will be easier even though they're so big....but so far, no water on the shelves underneath and it seems to be working well.
 
That is a really nice and well thought set-up you have there. Makes be want to start a new project!
thanks!!! :)

ironically, now, my husband got orders for italy with the navy (it's what we wanted so it's a good thing), but right after getting it finished and set up and going...now we're having to sell/re-home all of our chams!!!

definitely putting those cabinets in storage though for when we do come back!!!! :)
 
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