How to Build a Doghouse

Your dog needs a safe place to stay out of the weather. Here are easy instructions to build your pet a comfortable, but inexpensive doghouse of his very own.

First, you'll need to build a floor for your doghouse. This will keep your dog from having to sleep directly on the ground. Using two by fours, build a frame big enough for your dog to lay down in, and still be comfortably snug. Don't make it very much bigger than the size your dog is when he is curled up sleeping. Making it any larger will encourage him to poop on one end, and sleep at the other end.

Using your two by fours, build a rectangle to be the floor of your doghouse. We made ours two feet by three feet. You'll need to adjust your dimensions to make them appropriate for the size of your dog. Inside your rectangle place cross pieces of two by fours so that the open spaces in the floor aren't too big. Again, you'll decide how many cross braces to put in based on how large your floor is. Try not to leave any open any space, more than about 18 inches wide.

Next you'll cover your two by four grid with plywood, cut into a rectangle the same size as your floor. Nail it down securely; making sure that when you go through the plywood your nails or screws are going through into the two by fours and not into the open space.

Now, you'll build your walls. Your walls will begin as rectangles made of two by fours similar to what you started with building the floor. For our doghouse, we made a sloped roof. This kept us from having to do any extra math or cutting to form a peak in the middle. Instead our roof will be one piece, higher on one side than the other so that the rain or snow will slide off. If you want your doghouse roof to be sloped that way, simply make one of the side walls about a foot higher than the other.