When Harry pushed through the barrier at Platform 9¾ he entered a new, magical world.  While we are trying to simulate that magical world for our visitors, we thought they should have a taste of that transition.  To achieve this, we wanted to provide a photo opportunity where people could get their picture taken as they pushed their cart through the invisible barrier.

To create this, we need some items that are “half-way” through the wall.  One of those items is a bird cage, or more precisely, an owl cage.  But where do you find one?

Well, we thought that giant owl cages would be easy to find (using various Muggle sources like Craigslist, thrift stores, Cost Plus World Market and more).  But alas, they did not provide in an Eeylops Owl Emporium kind of way.

What did we do?  We decided to make it.

To do this, I gathered some spare plywood, a 2 foot 2X2 and a 14 in. diameter hemispherical bowl from IKEA.

I cut the plywood into half circles…

…and created a structure on which to shape the owl cage.

I got some thick wire and fed it through some thin garden watering system tubing.  I would use this as the wires of the owl cage.

I then stretched the wire tubing up and over the structure.

I repeated this several times and tied the intersections of the wire tubing with thin wire.  I went back to each intersection and secured it with hot glue.

Once all the horizontal and vertical wire tubing was in place and secured, I removed the bowl and top half-circle, leaving the half owl cage shell.  I added a small top ring as a handle (and a bracket for attaching to the wall…) and voilà!

All that is left is to paint this and it is ready to head ‘through’ the barrier!