Rabbinet

April 18, 2016

KateBaldwin

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I started making my rabbit enclosure at Build Madison 2014. I just recently finished it. Other than the final assembly, it was made at Sector67.

Pictures and Videos: Prezi Presentation

The rabbinet consists of two mirror-image towers connected by a bridge.
  • The upper 3 stories of each tower are for the rabbit.
  • The bridge connecting the 2 towers looks like a row of bones.
  • The inside is smooth.
  • The lower level is half storage, and half stairs for the rabbit to exit/enter the rabbinet.
  • It's green-edge acrylic, so it looks similar to glass, but is still easy to see through.
  • The exit/entrance door can be opened.
  • The exit/entrance door can be closed.
  • The rabbit ladder consists of a platform in-between the two stories, and then connecting ladders with carpet on each step.
  • Each step is curved.
  • The upper doors are clear acrylic and they open wide (like french doors) for easy access.
  • Each level has at least 2 exits so that the rabbit will never feel cornered. I used regular stairs, spiral stairs, rabbit ladders, and bridges.
  • Spiral stairs connect all three stories.
My rabbit loves the bone bridge!

Each level has a rug of marine carpet. It has a smooth rubber backing, and isn't made of little tufts so thus far my rabbit has shown no interest in eating it. I bought the carpet off a roll at Menards, but I noticed that they already discontinued the smooth rubber-backed carpet. I have more than one rug for each level so that I can toss them in the washing machine as needed. They wash and dry well so far.

The outer parts of the Rabinet are painted with copper paint and a verdigris patina applied. I applied more patina to the upper layers of the doors than the lower layers to accentuate the pattern. The paint and patina came from Sculpt Nouveau.

My Bunny really seems to enjoy her Rabbinet. I leave the door open almost all the time, but she chooses to spend most of her time in there. She runs back and forth across the Bone Bridge often.

The large doors have allowed for easy cleaning. Each tower is independent from the bone bridge, so I can roll them out to clean underneath them. The junction between the bridge and the tower consists of an over-lapping step up.

How it was Made

I designed the enclosure to best take advantage of two small corners in our living room. My plan was to have a tower in each of the two corners, connected by a bridge over the glass doors. I started making my plan when we first bought the house, and it looked like this photo.
This was a small cardboard model I made while making my plans.
  • I cut the doors of the upper section out of clear acrylic on the laser cutter. The bottom ones are cut out of wood on a CNC panel router.
  • The Plan
The lower doors of the storage area are made of solid wood, to hide the storage.
Here is the CNC router at Sector67 cutting the doors:
The rabbit ladder was laser cut out of wood. I used lots of notches and tabs so that it would glue-up strong.
The spiral stairs have a 2X2 square rod at their center. The rise and size of the steps were planned for rabbits, and the final numbers came out with 25 different step-shapes. The curves on each step were inspired by nautilus shells.
The bone bridge connects the two towers. The internal shape is identical, but the outer shape resembles a bone and subtly changes from arch to arch.

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Kate Baldwin