Wanted to share our Bearded Dragon's new home - pics

[Gaby]

Hello everybody! I have been sooooooooooo busy with school and kiddos lately, but I have about 5 min this morning to share some pics of our Bearded Dragon's new home. His (or her, lol) name is Ladon. The enclosure started out as a solid wood china cabinet that we picked up at a local thrift shop for $35 since it was missing a knob and something that was supposed to attach to the top. We don't know what that was, but there were screw holes for something, perhaps it was decorative molding or something. Here is what it looked like when we brought it home: My dear husband (the dragon is his) cut the "hutch" part of the cabinet off, leaving only the bottom part where the doors are, and slid the "hutch" part forward and added on to the back to make the top part deeper since it was where we wanted the dragon to be. (Behind the glass). Here is a link to the picture where you can see how he added on to the back and "reskinned" the whole cabinet in oak and added molding to make it nicer and hide the seams from the cuts.)remodeled and reskinned cabinetHe then stained the new wood to match the old wood, which was challenging, but he did a great job. Then came the fun part, but the time consuming part, designing the inside structure for Ladon to climb on. We used foam, and the spray foam stuff which seems like what a lot of people use to make these custom enclosures like these (at least that is what we could find on the net). We tried many different configurations till my husband settled on this one. Here is a link to a pic of the foam before it was tile cemented.foam before tile cementThen we had to add the tile cement, or morter I guess it was, I'm not too sure since the hubby bought it and mixed it. He did most of the sculpting, I had too much studying to do but I helped out a little. Here is a pic of the progress: Then once it was very dry we painted and sealed it and the finished product looks like this: Here is Ladon in his new home: It took a few days for him to get comfortable again, he doesn't transition easily, but now he climbs around and basks and seems really happy. We are very happy with how it looks too so I guess it was a win/win situation. We finally got our repti sun 10.0 bulb in and so I think Ladon will be healthier too. We only have one basking spot right now, in the back right corner, but Gary is thinking about adding another one in the left back corner above the cave. The ventilation is on the top, the back 2/3 of the top of the enclosure is full of drilled holes about 1&1/2 inches in diameter that are screened over so Ladon, and any climbing crickets don't escape. (The shelf on the top of the cabinet is sort of a facade, it isn't very deep but hides the basking light and ventilation holes from sight, and I will be able to put knick knacks or whatever on the shelf.) I love how the lights are hidden from our sight, that was my number one complaint about the 20 gal long terrarium he was in, the lights were just on top of the tank, and it was too bright for me to look at, now the lights are focused more in the tank, and with the wood strip in front hiding the UV bulb from us, but not from Ladon I am much happier. Anyway, just had to share!