Disclaimer: I am a serious pet parent. I’ve been wanting to get a golden retriever puppy for years, so when I finally started nesting before my fur baby came home, I was truly ready. This includes some heavy DIY work.
The crown jewel of my living room is my puppy’s crate, it looks like a piece of furniture – I love it and you’ll almost never notice that the inside is just a standard dog crate! I live and die by a clean, elegant aesthetic, and while I’m committed to keeping my puppy in a crate, I don’t want a messy prison as the centerpiece of my living room. . . So I decided to make my own.
There are nicer boxes available in the world – furniture-like boxes – but they tend to be less durable and definitely not chewable. Moreover, they are ridiculously expensive and I don’t want to spend $500 (or more!) on something that could go bad within a few minutes of use.
After an embarrassing amount of fruitless research, I had a lightbulb moment: I could create my own happy medium! Take a wire box and assemble a simple frame and lid around it to give it the aesthetics of furniture and the functionality of a tabletop.
I immediately called my dad—a former construction executive and Home Depot regular who owns a Tim Allen-level tool shed—to ask if he thought it was possible, and if so, if it was available. A few screenshots and specs later, we meet in the hallowed halls of hardware, orange aprons and sawdust.
Besides being more aesthetically pleasing than a wire dog crate, it is also a safer option for your dog. The crate is inside a wooden frame, so your puppy will never have the opportunity to chew on wood while teething. Dye can sometimes be toxic to dogs, and you don’t want pieces getting stuck in their little gums, so this is a way to achieve the look you want while protecting your pup.
Plus, it’s a more practical piece of furniture than a box (though it takes up just as much space in your home), making it ideal for storage, decoration, and lighting. It also makes the crate feel more like a den, so your dog will feel safer and more comfortable while camping inside.
This is a frame structure, there is no bottom, and the wire box is not attached to the “furniture” in any way. You build a basic frame and top, so it’s very simple and one of the easiest DIY furniture crafts you’ll ever try.
We decided to make the entire piece out of melamine that we had in stock at our local home improvement store. This saves us time and money by not having to (1) buy paint and (2) use paint. Melamine is also cheaper than wood, so you’ll save even more money. You don’t have to use melamine – especially if you want your furniture to be a different color – but if you like pure white and it’s cheap, then I have the material for you!
Also note that you will need to cut the melamine pieces. Just like a saw. This is great if you don’t have a saw and don’t want to use one! Me too. You can ask the friendly people at the hardware store to do the cutting so you can take home the perfect size piece for your project.
The size of the wood blocks depends on the specifications of your box. I chose a 36-inch crate, which is the average size for an adult female golden retriever (I’d be kidding if she outgrew that). Keep in mind that when you get a puppy, you may want to allocate a larger crate (most crates come with one!) to help them feel more comfortable and comfortable in a smaller space. Safe and then move the partition as your puppy grows. If you want to get the most out of your furniture, I highly recommend purchasing the largest crate needed for your puppy’s expected adult size – so you don’t have to make another one!
The entire process took about six hours, spread over two days. The cost of melamine materials is about $100. I bought this box during a big sale at PetSmart for about $25. Amazon also has tons of cheap boxes with rave reviews!
For each drawer corner, you will need to create a corner post on both sides – each made from a 28×2.5″ piece (Side A) and a 28×1.5″ piece (Side A). side). B) Drill the holes together to form a 2.5″ x 2.25″ L shape at a 90 degree angle.
Drill the parts in this way from the top, middle and bottom. You’ll end up covering the top of the screw with a small piece of sticker.
For this step you will need two 38″ x 2.5″ pieces. Attach one to the top of the front (long) side and one to the bottom using two drill bits in each corner.
Once the front and back are installed, attach them to the side rails (26″ x 2.5″ pieces), securing them at the top and bottom with two screws in each corner.
I decided to give this piece a removable top “lid” so that the wire box could be removed for transport, cleaning and moving when needed – this proved to be a very reliable solution.
The lid is a 42″ x 29″ piece of solid melamine with white tape around the edges (I’ll cover this in step six). We painted two small pieces of wood on the bottom and used Gorilla Glue (you can also use wood glue) to stabilize the lid and prevent it from sliding around. Wooden blocks are located on the long sides and are attached to the inside of the upper frame.
Lastly, I used the aforementioned white melamine tape to cover the raw and raw edges, and dot stickers to cover the holes and screws. You can buy it at a hardware store and melt it with an iron.
Baby loves her new “nest” – I crate trained her at night for the first month after I brought her home (the holes filled with frozen peanut butter definitely helped with that). This piece can also be used as a console table for my favorite shell lamp, photos of me and my puppy, my golden retriever books, and a few puppy things I like to have on hand. Plus, knowing that I made it myself (with my dad!) makes it an even more meaningful and valuable item to have in my home.
Post time: Sep-28-2023
