Building the cabinet
Last updated: July 25
I got Marble, the gargoyle gecko, in October 2025, when he was just a few months old. I kept him first in a small baby bin, then he moved into a proper grow-out enclosure, 12”w x 12”l x 18”h. This worked well as he grew, but eventually I would need to provide a bigger home.
None of the ready-made options available really spoke to me, so I decided to make something custom.
Step 1: Planning
There were a few things I knew off the bat:
- I wanted the enclosure to be 3 feet in height, with as big of a footprint as possible, and wanted it to live at eye-level, with storage for food and tools, and room for all of the lamps and pumps and other paraphernalia that comes with reptile keeping
- An enclosure that big needs some active ventilation, and I wanted automated misting, as well as to be able to track the temperature and humidity from multiple points
- I had to be physically capable of making the thing, so it couldn’t involve anything beyond the realm of my own audacity (like metalworking, 3D printing, etc.). Spoiler alert: I ended up ordering custom metalwork instead.
I started with sketches:
Eventually I settled on a general design: the enclosure on top, with an empty (and open) shelf beneath it, with a cupboard below that. I like the mix of open, visible storage (for knick knacks or whatever) combined with the more private storage where I can keep all of the crap associated with taking care of Marble: packs of powdered food (Pangea "with insects,” which is the red packet, if you’re interested), little plastic cups, a tub to keep crickets in, etc.
This design also allows me to remove the enclosure from the rest of the cabinet if necessary, which will come in handy if/when it comes time to move.
I also bought a table saw, because I did not trust my ability to make long cuts (especially mitered ones) with just my jigsaw. Was a new power tool strictly necessary here? Maybe not, but I’m a grown-up with grown-up money so, here we are.
Step 2: Give it good bones
I used my new table saw to cut some 2x4s to start the frame of the bottom module. I screwed up a couple of times and cut something too short, but I was able to reuse all the mis-cuts elsewhere.
I then realized that this was fundamentally the wrong design, and I had to dismantle the entire thing. I was able to save a couple of the lengths of 2x4, and the rest went into the scrap pile. And so it was that I started on an updated version, and pretty quickly things started to look much better. By the end of the third weekend, I had the full skeleton of the thing glued and screwed.
The base of the cabinet itself, and the base of the enclosure section, are 3/4” plywood. The rest of the panels are 1/2” plywood because shit is expensive and I don’t need the ceiling of the enclosure to support hundreds of pounds. I also ripped all of the 2x4s into 1.5x1.5” posts; this cuts the weight of the thing in half from my original plan, and is still super solid.
Step 3: Needs some walls
This was simultaneously the easiest and most intimidating part of the entire project for me. Conceptually, very simple: cut the plywood sheets to size and cover the outside of the frame. To do it right, however, I would have to bevel the edges. Which I did, only to learn that when you are bevelling like this, both pieces of wood need to be at the same angle, otherwise they end up being different widths.
This also adds a huge amount of weight to the whole structure. If I were doing this again, I would try to find a way to use 1/4” plywood for the side and back panels, especially of the lower cabinet, since they aren’t really supporting anything. Alas, I already had the 1/2” plywood, so that is what I used.
I added some trim around all of the edges to hide my sins and poor bevelling, and cut some holes for the ceiling, ventilation, and the display. Finally, I sanded everything up to 220 grit, and it was time to stain!