Alright, well I put the book shelf unit on hold for now. After doing alot of hard thinking I really want to build a bigger viv for Seth, I know the one he is in now is big enough but really would like to give him a bigger one.
So I took an old Entertainment center and ripped out the divider and shelves up top to open up a nice big area that im going to split in two units, an upper and lower then the small spot on the right side on the bottom will be used as another viv for a smaller corn.
Atm this is what I have.
This was right after I pulled out the shelves and divider ( separated the tv from the dvd players ect.)
Then I made up a support for the top because it was sagging a bit. I then cut 4 pieces one for each corner. I will cut out a slot in each for the new shelf to sit and it also gives me the basic shape up front for the doors to fit into, kinda hard to explain but this is what I have now.
It is really dirty in the pictures but it will of course be cleaned out real good before its finally all put together, also Every piece of wood added to this will be painted black to match and seal it.
Inside it is a half an inch under 4ft wide, the living space will be 14 inches deep from front to back and the total space up and down atm is 25.5 inches. Of course it will be cut down to roughly (hard to say till its done) 1foot in height on each chamber. I plan on having 2 hinged doors on the front with a wood frame with plexi glass in the door way. The back will be covered in Pegboard for ventilation.The bottom will most likely have screen on the OUTSIDE pard of the pegboard incase I end up putting a baby in so it cannot escape. Also The compartment ont he bottom left side with the door is where I plan on keeping the Thermostat and dimmer switches and all the electronical gear (as in power strips ect) so its not out in plain view.
The plan is to also build a pedestal that will sit the whole unit up about 2 feet off the ground to put them more at eye level and to keep it off the ground since the floors can get a little bit cold at night (Hard wood floors dont exactly stay toasty warm, especially when its -40f outside and you open a the front or back door) just for the safety of the snakes.
As you can see I have already started to cut some of the wood for this. The 4 corners will have about 3/4 of an inch cut out for the shelf to ride on but will be cut back a little bit on the front to put a piece of 1x2 running across the face so when the doors are closed the 2 chambers will be totally sealed off.
Atm the only things I NEED are 1 more heat pad (Have the one big one under Seths 29 gallon already I plan on using ) and I have a small one for the bottom unit already also. I need to pickup some pegboard for the back and the plexi glass up front. Also I Still plan on picking up a thermostat how ever because the smaller pad may run differently I may end up using the Dimmer switch on it depending on how it all runs when its said and done. I already have the Linoleum for the entire project (same stuff as the stuff used on my guinea pig cages if you seen that in the chit chat forum) but I still need calking.
After thinking long and hard about it I figured this was the wiser route to go for now. After this I still do plan on building the book shelf rack but that will be used mostly for babies or lizards.
Any way I know I have changed my plans and every thing like 3 or 4 times now but this is the one im sticking with lol, if you have any suggestions let me know.