I’m not the most handy guy. Honestly, I’m great with words but not so great with a hammer and nails. But a lot of years ago my then-wife got a chinchilla as a class pet and I got the bright idea to make the cage for the little guy myself.
I went to work on plans and figured out exactly which pieces of wood I would need. I went to Home Depot to buy the wood and then had them cut the pieces down there. At home, I went to work nailing everything together. It looked a lot like the one in the picture with this article (though the picture is professional and is a step above what I did). I even had the drawer at the bottom for the shavings he used as his potty.
Amazingly, I even made a modification later on. Chilly (as we named him) went into the little cubby I made for him at the top and he wouldn’t come out. It was close to impossible to remove him, so I cut a door into the side and hinged it so that we could open it when we had to. To this day, I’m still surprised by the end result and I wish I had the gumption today to tackle anything on that level.
