Series of plans gone wrong inspires 'Sgt. Pepper's Catio' in Sydney, B.C.

Before you can appreciate how meaningful it is for Brynne to have "Sgt. Pepper's Catio" attached to her home, you should know she's a prolific planner.

“I like to plan!” Brynne smiles, showing how she maps out a weeks' worth of meals on a spreadsheet.

“There’s nothing wrong with planning!”

Not until plans go wrong. Like during the pandemic, when Brynne dealt with a series of things that didn’t go according to plan.

First, Brynne and her husband had to cancel their plans for a 100-person church wedding and replace it with a dozen people waving along the street during a drive-by. Then, Brynne quit nursing school after realizing she wasn’t cut out for the career she had planned. There was also the rescue cat they adopted and planned to name after Iron Man’s girlfriend.

“When we picked the cat up (from the vet) we were told Pepper Potts was a mister,” Brynne laughs.

They named the grey cat Sgt. Pepper instead, before realizing how lonely his heart seemed being stuck inside.

“If there’s a problem I can’t solve, I’ll think about it before I fall asleep,” Brynne says. “When I wake-up, it’s like, 'This is how I’m going to do it.'”

But this was a first: waking up and being able to draw fully-formed, detailed plans for an enclosed patio, so the cat could safely experience being outside.