Yesterday I installed the Ideal Pet Products 6.25 in. x 6.25 in. Small Cat Flap Cat Door with Plastic Frame And Rigid Flap which I purchased for  $19.99 from The Home Depot. 

I'm extremely pleased with how easy it was to install, and with how well it functions.

During the past 5 or so years, my family has gained two cats. Cats are great, I love them, but the one thing that's most annoying about them is that they require a litter box to be placed inside the home. Litter boxes are nasty, even with the newer clumping litter, and even all of those perfumes and "odor blockers" still don't mean that having a box in the home for cats poop in isn't nasty.

Based on a lot of factors, we decided to place the cats' litter box in a pantry situated right off of the kitchen. We chose this spot because it wasn't carpeted, whereas pretty much every other room in the house is carpeted. Our litter box remained in the pantry close to the kitchen for years.

But it was disgusting to have a litter box so close to the kitchen. There were plenty of times where I was pulling a fresh meal out of the oven when all of the sudden, one of the cats defecated in the nearby litter box, filling the kitchen air with stench.. 

I recently came up with the idea of putting the litter box in the attached garage, also situated next to the kitchen. Placing the litter box in the garage, I thought, would keep the bad smell of the litter box out of the kitchen and out of my home completely. The cats could gain access to the litter box in the garage with the help of a cat door.

So that was the plan. If the litter box was in the garage, I wouldn't have to smell it. Also, having the litter box in the garage would mean that it would be closer to the outside trash can that is kept outside of the garage. So having the litter box in the garage would mean that I can dump the soiled litter out into the trash can without the hassle of carrying it through the house.

Cat doors are something that I'd heard of, but didn't know much about. I did a lot of searching online to learn about all of the available features you can get with them, but I eventually settled on the one I got, made by Ideal Pet Products. 

The Ideal Pet Products cat door had good reviews on just about every web site I checked, it was inexpensive, and it had a 4-way lock that could make it so that you could lock the cats outside, lock the cats inside, or keep the door locked so cats couldn't enter or exit. It was also made so you could, of course, not have it locked at all.

Also, a thing that helped steer my decision was the fact that replacement doors are available for the Ideal Pet Products cat door. From what I've seen of the cat door I installed, I don't forsee the door ever breaking, but it's good to know that I could buy a replacement if ever needed. 

I first had to decide if the 6.25" x 6.25" cat door was right for my cats. My oldest cat is really kind of fat, and I didn't know if I'd have to pay extra to get a bigger cat door than the regular sized Ideal Pet Products cat door, or if I could use the regular sized cat door. I didn't want to buy one only to find out that my largest cat couldn't fit her fat cat body through it. 

I came up with a way to find out if my biggest cat could fit through a 6.25" x 6.25" cat door using a really simple method.

There was a box laying around that one of my sons' Christmas presents came in. So I just cut a 6.25" x 6.25" square hole in the box, put the cat in the box, closed it, and waited to see if she could get out of the 6.25" hole.

She did! My big fat cat easily escaped through the roughly six inch square hole, and I knew that the regular sized cat door would be fine for her and my other, smaller, cat. I knew the 6.25" cat door would be perfect.

Home Depot had the door in stock and it was only $19.99, so I picked one up. 

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would cut through the door. Some people who posted to handyman forums said that a jigsaw was a terrible way to cut through a metal skinned foam core door, and others said a jigsaw worked fine. Some others said that a circular saw or an angle grinder, with appropriate blades, were the best ways to go.

I realized that I would drill through the door first and then take a look at the thickness of the metal before I would decide how I would cut out the square opening to accommodate the cat door.

After carefully positioning and taping the included paper cat door template in place, I used a hammer and a screw to pound indentations into the door where the holes would be drilled at the corners of what would become the opening for the cat door. The little indentations keep the drill bit in place so it doesn't move around when the actual drilling begins.

For drilling, I used a 1/2" drill bit, the maximum size recommended by the cat door instructions. I also used a drill guide almost just like this one to make sure that the holes were drilled perpendicular to the door. 

I probably should have made sure that a block of wood was held firmly over the exit holes when I drilled. I didn't though, and the drill bit kind of warped the metal around the exit holes. I can always use a rotary tool to smooth those out later.

After drilling the four corner holes, it was time to cut a square out using the four holes as entry points for the jigsaw blade that I used. I had to run to Wal-Mart to get some jigsaw blades because I didn't have any jigsaw blades suitable for cutting through metal. 

Wal-Mart didn't have a good selection of jigsaw blades and the jigsaw blade I had was kind of short and I couldn't cut all the way through both sides of the door at once. I had to saw through one side of the door skin at once and I had to hold the jigsaw away from the door a little bit because otherwise the tip of the jigsaw blade would hit the metal skin on the other side of the door as I sawed through the side of the door closest to me.

It didn't take long though, to get a square cut out of the door on both sides. A template was provided with the cat door and this template was used to trace a square opening in pencil just where the cuts needed to be made. The included template worked out great.

Once that little opening in the door was made though, it was smooth sailing. The cat door is easy to install into the sawed out opening. 

The cat door comes out of the box in basically two pieces. The pieces are labeled as the "inside" part, and the "outside" part. These pieces are placed into the opening cut into the door. The "inside" part of the door contains the flap and that's already pre-assembled. It's really simple. 

Once the inside and outside parts of the cat door assembly were in place, they were held in place with four screws, one positioned at each corner of the cat door. And that's it. The cat door is fully installed once those four screws are screwed snugly.

My oldest cat, the one that I wasn't sure if she was able to fit through a 6.25" cat door, was instantly interested in the cat door upon the completion of its installation. She approached it with no prodding from anyone, but I stuffed her through it because I figured that she might not have realized on her own that it was a door which she could go through.

My youngest cat needed more encouragement, but within a day both cats were going in and out of the door on their own.

To get the cats to become accustomed to using the cat door, I put their food in the garage instead of in the house where it had always been. After a few days of seeing the cats go in and out of the cat door to get food, I finally moved their litter box into the garage.

One thing that I am impressed with, is how well the cat door seals out cold air. The flap part of the door has kind of a fuzzy weather strip around it, resulting in a pretty good seal between the clear flap of the cat door and the frame. Also, there's a magnet which makes the door always go back to a closed position after a cat passes through the flap. The magnet works really well at making sure the cat flap is always in a closed position when it's not in use. 

I also like that this cat door, the actual flap of the door, is clear. My cats like to sit by the door and look through the clear flap for a while before going through it. I guess they want to make sure there's nothing on the other side of the door that will ambush them.

Overall, I think this Ideal Pet Products cat door is great. It's inexpensive, easy to install, easy for the cats to use, and it allowed me to get that stinky litter box out of my house. I wish I had bought one  sooner.