Custom Double Dog Kennel

Two years ago, I built a fancy kennel for our new puppy.  We’ve since added another puppy and moved into a new house, so I wanted to build a double kennel for both of them.  The wire crate kind of detracted from the nice wood one next to it…

(Custom Dog Portraits by MoonCollie Art)

I’ve been wanting to build this double kennel for a while, but have a hard time deciding on a design and what type of hardware I would use.  The original crate has rebar and it is extremely heavy.  The rebar also wasn’t that cheap and required a lot of extra work.  I had also seen a lot of kennels with barn doors, but I wasn’t sure how much weight that would add and was concerned with the cost.  Over time, the design came together and I got started.

Since I have a pile of poplar in our new shop, the entire kennel is made of solid poplar except for a sheet of plywood for the subfloor.  I cut all the boards and the barn doors were once of the first things I assembled.

The back wall of the kennel is several 6″ boards joined together with pocket screws.

I wanted the top of have a “wow” factor, so it required a lot of time and labor and created a lot of waste to make all the angled cuts.  I’m pretty happy with how it turned out though.

Instead of using rebar this time, I ordered plain black staircase balusters.  They are hollow and SO much lighter.  I thought they were going to be round, but they are square which made things slightly more complicated.  One end is round so I was able to just drill holes with the drill press on that side.  The other end was square, so I inserted dowels into that end and drilled holes into the wood the same size.  It worked out pretty well.  I actually prefer the look of the square rods, it just added a couple extra steps.

You will also notice that one of these side panels is darker than the other.  Since poplar is fairly plain, I wanted to raise the grain like I did with the Mud Room Project.

I used a propane torch on all the inside surfaces and the top then sanded the excess char off.

I was also going to stain the wood, but decided just a coat of poly was all that was needed.  In the above picture, the top panel has a coat of poly while the bottom panel is still raw so you can see the difference.

Once all the panels were assembled, I loaded them up and brought them to the house.  It was crazy hot that week so I decided to paint it in the basement which is also where it would be staying.

First, I assembled the wall panels.  Then I attached the base and cut a piece of plywood to use as a subfloor.

I painted the exterior surfaces with Fusion Mineral Paint in Champness.

Then I covered the first coat with Fusion Midnight Blue.  Some distressing allowed the lighter blue to show thru (this is still in progress).

I was excited (and nervous) to finally be able to attach the barn door hardware.  Fortunately, everything lined up great.

Once again, he had to try it out while I was working on it.  For the flooring, I used a waterproof vinyl plank that looks like wood since it worked well the first time.  I will caulk between the floor and walls so that any accidents so not leak out.

Once work was done on the inside, I was able to attach the top and it was finished!  It was around 2 weeks from the time I cut the first board until the top was attached.

The middle divider is removable and held in place with 4 latches.

And here are the pups trying it out…