3 Cat Behaviours That Suggest They Need A Cat Enclosure

3 Cat Behaviours That Suggest They Need A Cat Enclosure

If you have a cat we are sure you love them dearly, although if you are the same as any other pet owner, there will doubtless be times where your cat’s behaviour does not always please you. Cats may behave strangely for a number of reasons, and the point might come where you have to consider if it would best for them to have their own backyard cat enclosure.

Making that decision might be tough for some cat owners, and that is understandable. However, unless your cat’s behaviour improves, the risk is that it gets so bad that both you and your cat become distressed. Thereafter, the most likely outcome is that you may want to be rid of the cat, and is not the right solution for them, nor for you.

There are a number of signs that your cat’s well-being may be served by them having their own cat enclosure. This could be a cat enclosure that is permanently assembled in one spot or a portable cat enclosure that can be positioned wherever it seems best at the time.

Before you choose which one, you need to identify which behaviours are the ones that are leading you towards having to make a choice. We should point out that if any of these behaviours give you cause for concern with respect to your cat’s health, then you should certainly book an appointment for them to be examined by a vet.

As for those tell-tale signs and behaviours that suggest a cat enclosure might be a solution, here are the main ones.

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Pool Design

Best Pool Design When You Have Children and Pets

Every year for the last decade or more, an average of 30 Australian children have drowned. What’s more, swimming pools make up the most substantial proportion of drowning-related incidents. With these sobering statistics in mind, it’s essential to always factor your children’s and pets’ safety into your pool design. Their danger sensors are not as refined as yours.

Pools can be fun to enjoy family time, but they can also be deadly. Take note of these design ideas, and consult your local landscaping expert for more.

Invest in Fencing

Looking at your pool design options, you might think fencing will ruin your property’s appeal. Not all swimming pool fencing is the most attractive, but it’s a life-saving and legal requirement. What’s more, frameless pool fencing minimises the interruption of your landscape.

Before installing full fencing around your pool, determine your legal requirements. Any pool design expert should know them, but it doesn’t hurt to be aware of them yourself. Most states require up to 1200mm tall pool barriers, with a 1500mm self-closing and self-latching gate.

Try Splash Decks

If you want your children and pets to enjoy the water with you, ensure they feel comfortable by providing a shallow area to splash in. A splash deck could fit this bill. A splash deck is an external pool part that lets you sit at the edge and dangle your feet. It’s also an excellent starting point for children and pets with full supervision.

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Garden Lighting

Garden Lighting: Turn Your Garden Into A Nighttime Wonderland

According to professional landscape designers, outdoor garden lighting is one of the most under utilised landscape design features out there. A lot of people put thousands of dollars and hours of their time into creating the perfect garden, but they forget that it’s dark half of the time.

If you truly want to develop an outdoor space that you can take advantage of in any weather and at any time of the day or night, you need to include lights in your landscape design. Clever use of lighting can help transform your garden from a bleak, dull area to a nighttime wonderland. Who would say no to this?

What Are The Benefits Of Outdoor Lighting?

Installing outdoor lighting in your garden and around your entertaining areas comes with a wide range of benefits. These include:

  • Clever use of lighting will allow you to make use of your yard at any time of the day or night. This is especially useful for people who live in warm climates where the nights are often the most comfortable part of the day.
  • Outdoor lighting can help create a warm, comfortable atmosphere – this is perfect for entertaining guests!
  • Cleverly positioned lights can make your home safer and more secure, deterring potential burglars.
  • Additionally, outdoor lighting can even help improve the value of your home.

As you can see, you would be stupid not to at least think about including at least some sort of lighting in your outdoor spaces!

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Landscape Designing

4 Reasons why Landscape Designing is Important

Art and creativity are what makes our world a nice place to live in. Life might still go on without it, but it would surely be dull and bland. This reality can be pretty much applied to everything — including your gardens.

Your garden is what brings freshness and beauty to your home. It is also what connects you with nature. Thus, it’s important to ensure that it’s well taken care of. That’s where an experienced landscape architect and their landscaping design skills kick in.

  1. Make your home more livable

We all want to live in a home that’s conducive to living. A home that’s cozy, comfortable, and relaxing is everyone’s dream, and landscape designing can help you achieve just that. Compare a yard that’s surrounded by tall weeds to a landscaped garden. Wouldn’t it be better to have the latter? That’s what landscape designing is all about. It lets you feel that you’re in your own home and have full control of it.

  1. Feel the outdoors

Houses might be built to protect us from the outdoors. But if that’s their only use, then there’s no doubt we’re going to feel constrained with them through time. Yes, its main purpose is to put us under a roof and keep us safe from the elements, but we’ve always got a choice to feel the gentle breeze and sunlight in our backyards. After all, isn’t it our home?

Make use of iCoat WA and get your outdoor concrete floor coated. You can also put a bench, or perhaps place a dining table in it. This gives you a place where you can enjoy the beauty of nature. And it’s not just about the experience, but it also makes you healthier because you can breathe fresh air anytime you want.

  1. Connect with nature

We might be living in the modern age, where everything’s surrounded by buildings, computers, and who-knows-what. Living in a metropolitan jungle might be cool at first, but it slowly seeps away your energy. So why not get in touch with nature? You can do that by designing your landscape.

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pool fence

Advantages of a Glass Pool or Balcony Fencing

If you have a pool, you’ll certainly need to have some kind of safe pool fencing around it. The simple thing to do is contact fencing contractors to do the job, but first, consider what kind of fence you’d like to have. There are several options, but toughened glass is not only sustainable, it has several advantages, some of which other kinds of fences lack.

  • You can see right through glass pool fences meaning it is easier to keep an eye on the children in or out of the pool.
  • Because of its transparency, a glass fence does not appear to cut your yard in half, thus making it look smaller that it really is.
  • You can still enjoy the look of your garden through the fence without any hindrance.
  • Glass can be used for other fences in the area, for instance a protective wall along the edge of a patio, along an outdoor stairway or across a balcony, so all the fences will match offering a cohesive look and feel to your property.
  • Glass is sustainable. It is made from sand of which there is plenty and it can be recycled completely, with no breakdown in strength of the recycled products.
  • A glass fence needs no maintenance, which will save you a lot of costs over the years.
  • Glass is not prone to white ants, rot from getting wet, rust, warping or many of the other disadvantages of other materials such as timber and even steel.

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Green Lawn

Speak to the Lawn

Let’s say your lawn could talk to you. What would it be saying? Most lawns put up with a certain lack of care and attention over the years, so it might start a real whinge about being abused, underappreciated and a bit hungry. Lawns add value to your property so you might be wasting a big asset.

Virtual Reality Lawn

Technology has leapt ahead to the point where you could put on one of those Virtual Reality head pieces and transport yourself to a yard with a beautiful, healthy green lawn. But it is ‘virtual reality’, so you can’t simply flick a switch to change your poor existing lawn. A well cared for and healthy lawn for instance, looks rather stunning. It’s great to look at, fun to play on, and there’s no doubting its ability to dramatically increase your property’s curb appeal. As an added bonus, a lawn is healthy for the environment.

KISS

Achieving that beautiful lawn is not something that requires you to have a Master’s degree in agronomy. You just need to adjust the way you are doing some of the things and make sure that you continue with the changes in the future.

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Joe's Home Improvements
Small Garden

7 Landscaping Trends for the Small Garden

As house blocks become smaller, so do gardens and outdoor spaces, so to make the most of the alfresco area, it’s a good idea to have professional landscaping done. Professionals have had a great deal of experience and training and know the best way to ensure every tiny corner is put to use so your garden not only adds value to your home but enhances your lifestyle at the same time.

Here are seven of the latest trends for small gardens.

  • Most people enjoy some kind of greenery in their life, so small gardens are really taking off. Even if your courtyard is only big enough for a shrub and a chaise or two, you can have it designed to make it look larger. Potted plants and raised gardens don’t take up much room and will enhance your courtyard, and the time spent there will be more pleasurable.
  • Edible landscapes are becoming trendier. Add some herbs for cooking, one or two tomato plants, peppers or snow peas in your flowers for a great garden that tastes great and looks good. Remember to only plant your favourite food, though.
  • Not everyone wants to mow and water lawns on their days off, so increasingly, small areas are being paved. Whether you choose fake turf, decking, limestone, tiles or bricks, or perhaps gravel with pavers is up to you. Replacing the lawn is also eco-friendly as you will save on water and fertilisers.
  • Creating a garden that reflects elements of your latest overseas holidays is also trendy. Think what you liked best on your holiday and work it into your landscape: a fish pond, bridge over running water, white gravel and pavers or a row of brightly coloured garden pots.
  • Going vertical with your gardening, with a particular grow wall that faces the sun, will enable you to have even more plants and can hide ugly brickwork. Remember to choose vines that are not rampant growers, so you don’t have to keep cutting them back. You could even espalier a fruit tree. Many modular systems have all you need for watering and fertilising, making maintenance a breeze.

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Veranda-Furniture

How Veranda Furniture Should Differ from Outdoor Furniture

Many people these days design their home to include a beautiful and relaxing outdoor area complete with comfortable outdoor furniture so they can entertain or have family meals outdoors if they want to. If you home doesn’t have one of these areas, it is easy to renovate the home to include a deck or verandah, or add a gazebo or outdoor dining area to the backyard.

The kind of furniture you purchase for this area will differ, depending on where it is and what your dining or relaxation area consists of. Basically, whether it is weatherproof or not. A veranda or deck that includes a roof and is enclosed on at least three sides can be considered mostly weatherproof.

Veranda-Furniture

However, a gazebo with a roof but no walls is not weather proof because the wind will blow rain straight in. Even if there are one or two walls and a roof it is still not exactly weatherproof from any but the lightest shower and that only when there is no wind.

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built-in-pool

What Kind of Pool do You Need?

Pool builders will tell you there are many different kinds of pools and different types of building materials for them. If you are considering adding a pool to your backyard it’s important to ensure it is suitable for your children and this will depend on their age. If your kids are still toddlers, they won’t get much use from a pool that is six feet deep.

You may think that installing a deep pool now will at least enable you to have a nice swim, but how many times can you get outside without those little ones toddling along after you? Mum in the deep pool while toddlers sit and watch is an unrealistic expectation. It is far better to have a small above ground wading pool for the little ones and you can sit in it with them while they have fun. It will be enough to cool you off on a hot day.

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Pool Maintenance

8 Easy Pool Maintenance Tips

When you have a pool, cleaning it is essential and for major clean-ups automatic pool cleaners of some kind are ideal. There are several types of cleaner that make the work less of a drudge, the best of all being the robotic cleaner that picks up all kinds of debris both large and small. But in between these major cleans, you still need to do maintenance so the water is less likely to get algae and bacteria in it. Here are 8 easy tips to help.

  • Use a pool skimmer to remove surface debris every day. Most such rubbish floats for a few hours before sinking, so it is easier to remove it at this time and it will not then have time to start decomposing to any great extent, making your pool water pH out of balance. You should also empty the skimmer baskets every day.
  • It is not only the leaves and twigs blowing into the pool that causes a problem with water purity; sunscreen and body oils wash into the water also. These can’t be lifted out with a scoop, but if you throw 2-3 new tennis balls into the pool, the oil in both will get caught on the fur as they bob around. Take them out and run them under the hot tap every so often to remove the oil.
  • Having an automatic pool cleaner or brushing the pool once a week to prevent mould or algae build-up. Everything that is under the water needs to be brushed, including steps, rails, ladders, walls and base. Vinyl, fibreglass and tiles need a soft brush; concrete and plaster need a stiffer brush.

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