Garage door, cat hotel

After some serious Black Friday shopping and the Muppet Movie (watching a movie in the theater was a first for both girls), we tackled some home improvements this weekend.

Our 20-year-old garage door was falling apart, so the friendly folks from Mesa Garage Doors came out and installed a new door on Saturday.

It's so much better than our old door, which you see the installer removing in the top photo.

It's fully insulated, with weather-stripping and molding around the outside edge. We chose to go with the same color and the same window style as our old door, but we went with long panels instead of short panels to change it up a little bit.

I hope the insulation helps in the summer heat since our house faces west and bakes in the afternoon.

The second project started with one of those moments Stace often has, when he sees something and says, "I could make that, easy!"

We were looking at cat trees at PetSmart on Friday (where we snagged a fancy automatic cat box at half-off) when Stace was inspired to build Spencer and Sebastian their own fancy cat hotel, as Cora calls it.

Stace already had most of the supplies in the garage - recognize the carpet, anyone? - and after a day's work Sunday, the boys were happily playing in their new hotel.

The top level has a hole, for crawling through and playing, and the middle level is for sleeping. Stace bought some sisal rope, and we'll wrap that around the legs.