Country Dog House with Porch

A few of my past posts have been of the "budget" variety, especially since we bought our new house.  I hate having to build within a budget, often because the plans and ideas in my head are much grander than I could ever afford.  The following project is a great example of having to walk that line between reasonable for its application and what I want to build.

A dog house.  I already had it planned in my head before I ever put pencil to paper: a large, elevated log cabin, ramp access(for the old blind dog), 2nd floor patio, doggie pool, you name it.  Man it would have been cool. Would have been.

I scrapped 95% of the fun ideas and ended up with a reasonable and purposeful end product. Shade for the summer and shelter for the winter.

First up: Trip to Lowes.  Pretty basic shopping list here, 2x4s, exterior siding, tin roofing, and some discount paint.

The base was made using pressure treated pine.  The darker material was some old wood that was laying around that I repurposed.  My trip to Lowes wasn't quite perfect, but I pulled together enough scrap to make it work.

One sheet of 1/2" exterior plywood makes up the flooring as well as the roof.  The enclosed portion was about 3'x4', with the entire house being about 3'x7'.  I sized it to get the most out of just a few pieces of plywood.

After the basic framing I went ahead and moved it to its final location in the backyard. Now or never, it got heavy quick. Before starting the siding I made sure my blocks were leveled out.

Paint on before decking and roofing to make my life a little easier. I really lucked out on the paint: they happened to have a full gallon of exterior wood stain and waterproofer on the "oops" shelf.  This is a product that normally costs $40 discounted for just $7.  I probably would have been good with any color at that price.

Slapped on the decking, roofing, and then added in some hay for warmth.  Here are a few finished pictures, complete with a fully posed dog.

The End.