u/Fusionk39

The cats will free roam whenever one of us is home.

The house is a 2 bedroom cottage. One front door no other ways into the house. It’s an upside down house. 2 nice bedrooms downstairs. It won’t have a cat dungeon. The upstairs is an open plan kitchen lounge and dining room.

Hello I’m currently in the process of buying a house. It’ll be 100% mine I’m paying all bills, mortgage, new furniture etc. I have a girlfriend that doesn’t work. But will be living with me eventually she will have an input on decoration and everything. We’re having abit of a dispute of what to do with her cats when we’re out of the house. The house has an open plan lounge kitchen and diner upstairs a hallway the bathroom and the bedrooms downstairs. I have a dog and plan on fitting a baby gate on the stairs and cutting a dog flap into the front door.
The cats are strictly house cats. I’ve said about kitting one of the bedrooms for them. Big cattery climbing wall etc so they have lots to do. I also plan on putting aircon in all the rooms of the house so it’ll be cool in the summer. She doesn’t like that idea and wants them to be able to roam the house when we’re out. I know they’ve caused a lot of damage in her own home to walls furniture etc so I don’t like the idea of them roaming in open plan upstairs that will have all new furniture and they’d have access to the kitchen. Thank you any advice is appreciated.

Edit. Thank you for all the replies I’ll have to think about it all. The plan for the room was lots of stuff to climb shelves basically like a play area for them id make it nice temped to try and build a cattery and leave the window open so they can go out aswell. I want to make the effort for them. With my gf not working they wouldn’t be alone and would just be roaming all the time. The only time is when we both would be out which wouldn’t ever be very long because we’d want to be back with them. I also feel guilty about the idea. The cats ruined the old sofas at my girlfriend’s house and quite alot of the carpets and wallpaper. They are strictly house cats.

Edit.
The dog will be in the hallway the cats will be in the spare bedroom. The room size is about 4.71m long 2.7m wide. The cats are basically scared of everything. They have warmed up to me but they’d always run away from my dog i think. Will take a lot of time to get them used to each other but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Edit.
I plan on making the garden cat/dog safe. The cats do go out in the garden but don’t go any further. But my girlfriend normally stays out with them because she likes to keep and eye on them one is very sickly and gets ill if he eats anything in the garden

Edit.
I’m 27 and work full time. I’ve saved the deposit and some of the money towards furniture. Will buy more as I go.
My girlfriend is currently living with her mum and doing open uni.

Edit.
I just want to say. When my girlfriend and her mum are out. They limit the cats to the hallway of her house.