DIY Dog Crate

Hello all! Today I am sharing something I have been waiting to share for a while. Like a long while. Let me backtrack. We moved into this house in July, and when we first moved in, the only major issue I had with the house was Atlas’ dog crate. I don’t know how many of you are dog owners, specifically large dog owners. If you are, you know how massive and ugly dog crates are. Well in this new house, we don’t have a designated separate area for a crate.

In our previous rental home, we had an area off the kitchen that was out of the way and perfect to hide a huge gaping hole of ugly crate. In this new house however, we had no such luck. There was no other option for us (without allowing Atlas to have a spare bedroom, and we’re just not really into that) other than to put his crate into the living room. So for the past few months we have had a massive eyesore of a dog crate sitting in the corner of the living room and it’s been totally cramping my style.

I haven’t been able to decorate around it because it’s been driving me crazy. I had an idea for a crate that Ethan could build that might look a little less ugly than the typical black metal that I could decorate around. It took a while for this to actually come into fruition, but this is what we came up with:

Ethan gets better with every building project he does, and this turned out perfectly! He pieced together the sides each made with chicken wire.

The top is made from old fence boards, and Ethan sanded them down to make a nice smooth finish.

The front has a door that swings open with a little hook to keep it locked.

The best part is that I actually have actually been able to decorate around, without it looking too ugly. The plan is to eventually add curtains that we can close when we have company over, which is why we raised the top a bit off the sides.

It fits into our decor, and Atlas likes it pretty well too! He was even so kind as to pose for the camera while I was taking these photos! (Just kidding. You have no idea how hard it was to catch him not looking stupid.) Seriously though. This project is just what we needed to finish out this side of the living room, and I could not be more pleased with how it turned out.

In case you were curious, this whole project cost about $40. The most expensive part of it was the chicken wire which was about $30. (In order to get the height we wanted, we had to buy at least 50 feet.) The reclaimed wood was donated by a friend who had replaced a portion of their fence. The only thing we bought was the wood and the hardware, and of course the chicken wire.

The chicken wire isn’t super strong, but Atlas is pretty well behaved so we trust him not to try to bust out of his crate. Definitely a pretty and functional piece to add to our decor. Do you have an ugly dog crate at home? Would you ever do something like this instead? I’d love to hear about it!

Well, that’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!