How to close off an upstairs with a half wall

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We have two incompatible contingents of cats - a couple of the boys have blood grudges against the girls. Every place we've lived we've been able to install a fairly inexpensive door that dissects the house into two relatively equal halves, and rotate the two cat contingents between the two areas.

We're house shopping. We've found a dream house but it has an upstairs that flows from the downstairs with a half wall at the top of the stairs that extends a little into the second floor hallway. It's too big an area to close by building a door.

We joke about starting fresh by getting rid of all or some of our cats, but to us it would be like abandoning a family member. So this structural inconvenience could be a deal breaker for a house that is perfect in every other way.

Has anyone encountered a need to install a way to cat proof against a half walled stairwell?

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@snood,

How about a glassed in continuance of the wall to the ceiling, and then a door at the top of the stairs?
<trying to picture the situation>
My last house had a front porch that was subject to ocean and bay winds so one side of it, the north, had a two foot wall from porch level up, and then a framed/paned glass wall to eight foot height - that was pretty attractive and went with the house (built circa 1920). The framing was painted to match house color, natch. I'll post a photo if I find one.

Or, a similar thing, but made out of good lattice work - not just the panels you buy at Home stores, but constructed of 2 x 2's with appropriate posts - that would have a garden-y look which could either go with the house or look really out of place.
Or, if it's a modern house, framed perforated steel sheeting.

What's the type of house?

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@snood,

without some kinda picture of the existing problem, it is difficult to offer real solutions.

maybe an outta the box one...

has anyone ever tried a shock collar on a cat?

I would probably have a neighbor or the mailman put it on the cat, as one of the possible outcomes is that the cat walks right on through the shock and goes to find the person that put the collar on and kicks their ass...

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These are images I found online - not exactly the same as the house we want, but close to the same kind of area we'd have to close off.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_vswDWGRlsPw/TUyBNGjHmpI/AAAAAAAAMFw/sqBLvdY0-8g/IMG_2920_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg

http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=I.4624963257369203&pid=1.7&w=215&h=154&c=7&rs=1

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@snood,

Ok, fairly easy, except to put a door in at the top, you need a landing as you come up off the stairs to the 2nd floor, so if the existing landing isn't, say, 6 feet long, then the door has to be framed from the end of the short wall - and it's hard to guess what is going on three or four feet past the end of the wall. Then the space above the door needs framing/filling too.

Does the room have high ceilings?

I found a photo or two just to show what I was talking about. Will scan.

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@ossobuco,

You can just see the glass here, at the left side of the porch that was going to be repoured:

closer - (the wiggly lines are shadows)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v722/ossobuco/IMG_0003.jpg

Well that's one idea -
you could also build the wall all the way up, and then frame the door at the end of that.

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How to close off an upstairs with a half wall

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