Flick's Wonderful Viv, all thanks to you lot!

[kittyp]

I thought I would join so I could thank this forum for helping provide Flick with a much better life. Let me explain:
Although 2005 isn't long ago, my family 'went by the book' back then and all our hamster knowledge came from a strange orange and brown printed 'Hamster Manual'. Obviously knowing no better, we followed the book and bought our old hamster, Harry, an old version of the Rotastak Creepy Castle (which, I must note, is strangely about twice the size of the current Creepy Castles on sale). He did seem happy in it and so my parents, not being the hamster fanactic of the family (who you might have guessed is me!) just assumed a Rotastak would be fine for Flick. I thought otherwise and argued continously, and this forum finally bought it home to them!
My Dad spends alot of time away for work and becuase he was home for Christmas he got really into the whole thing of being a Dad and went on a world mission to make sure Flick had the best cage in town!
IMG_0532[1].jpg
We completed this (well I took pictures and watched and did the appaling layout) in one Saturday and that included going to a glass cutter only to find out we couldnt cut the viv front because it is 'toughened safety glass', spending 3 hours in B&Q choosing mesh and finding the safest screws (only my dad could be that picky) and going to the cinema to watch Les Mis.

Basically he just hacked a hole in each end, cut up the mesh sheet, put about a third of it on each end to cover the hole and neatened the rough end by plating on a aliminium strip then screwed a vent thingy to the other side of the hole.
The pictures will probably explain a lot better!
Flick loves it and is a lot safer from the cats now (should they break in).
The only problem we had was fixing the water bottle to the decorative mesh but I think we put a keyring in the mesh then clipped the bottle on?
Oh and the sucker cups on the front is our temporary lock which we had to improvise until our new lock that doesnt need drilled glass to fit comes! Its actually working rather well though...
Oh and for the IKEA hackers out there, we used GLIMMA, MAGASIN some other things plus our own hack, a MIXTUR 15 x 15 serving dish to make a sand tray!