Homemade Dog Houses

Materials

• The most common material for a homemade doghouse is 1/2-inch plywood. It is fairly cheap and easy to work with. You can build the entire house from this material, even cutting the plywood into 3-inch strips to form corner braces. It can be used for the roofing, floor and walls. Another option is to use pine boards and a 2-by-4 frame.

Construction

• The dog house can be built simply by cutting the plywood to the right width, length and height, then driving screws into the edges of the plywood at the corners. Adding braces as described in section 1 will reinforce the doghouse. You can also use 2-by-4 boards as corner braces and screws through the plywood into the braces. Just be sure the screws do not poke through the brace and into the doghouse. The roof can be laid right on top of the frame. If you are making a slanted roof, cut one side higher than the other, and then cut the front and back at an angle to match the slope of the roof. The roof can be laid right on top.

Designs

• The most common design is the square house with a peaked roof. This requires cutting two peaked sections to fit on top of the home frame from plywood. You can also cut the front and back walls to include the peaked section, so they look like arrows. This simplifies the process. Boards can be laid across these sections to form the roof. Other designs are more complex. Doghouses with separate rooms can be crafted simply by expanding the frame and cutting a door into the side walls. Most doghouses are fairly simple, however, and the traditional square, one-room design is usually the best option.