This tutorial will try to explain how to turn a common (free) doghouse into a fabulous
duckhouse in just a few rather easy steps! But we will start this blog with a little bit of background on the doghouse, because deserves to be recognized. The doghouse was given to my father by a friend of his. I can’t remember if this friend got the doghouse (used) for his dog and it didn’t like it, or if it came with his new house. Either way, Dad thought that Bailey (their dog) might like it cause she likes spending time outside and Dad was thinking about taking down our childhood clubhouse, which she currently spends the bulk of her time hanging out under. This was perhaps five years ago when the house was brought home. It spent perhaps a year in their garage being ignored, the clubhouse is still standing in the backyard, and Mom didn’t really think Bailey would find it a proper substitute. At about this time we were looking for a house of our own, and worrying about where Oscar would live, since we probably wouldn’t have a nice out of the rain front porch for him to sleep on. Oscar is our outdoor cat. He was a stray we took in, and well, he’s dirty and a bully and we didn’t want to get him and the indoor princess together, so he needed digs of his own.
Thats when I thought of the doghouse in my parents garage. Dad was quite happy to give it to Oscar. We re-roofed it, and I even painted it with their leftover house paint to make it all nice. And when we bought our house, Dad and Peter drove it over, and I think it took Three guys to get it into place, next to our house. But it turned out that Oscar didn’t need the doghouse, he got the Laundry Room instead. I installed a cat door, and he spends most of his time curled up in a ball in his motorcycle kitty bed next to the washer. He is a cat of simple needs, and he’s also pretty old now we think. So the Doghouse (now
cathouse?) became the garden tool storage shed. And the place neighborhood cats sprayed. Kinda gross, huh? Oh, it also got a paint job to change it from taupe to orange, so
thats what you will see in the pictures. It was briefly earmarked about a month ago to be given to a friend’s
friend’s dog, who lives in the country and would like the smell of cat pee, when Brandon and Emily (friend) brainstormed that it would be a great duck house. So it got
ungifted to this dog, and
thats when I started drafting renovation plans. It got really complicated at one point, but then I simpled it back down to what you will see below. And now we will get to how to turn a doghouse into a
duckhouse! Firstly, you start with a doghouse. Ours is about 3 and a half feet long, and about two and a half wide. And it weights about a half ton. Now, in order to use this as a
duckhouse you have to be able to fairly easily clean it out. And in order to do that you have to have a big enough door to get in. And nobody likes climbing in a dog door. It
sux. So, you cut a larger door. I widened ours to the full width of the front of the house, and made it about two feet tall.
Thats the opening below, and you can see both colors the house used to be, the taupe side was the one facing our house and I couldn’t paint it.
Second, cut a piece of
formica to fit the bottom of the house. This makes cleaning out the coop much easier, cause poo doesn’t stick very well to
formica. You can use any slick kind of flooring, this stuff is just cheap, and you can cut it with scissors. I chose this charming rust color, but the Restore has plenty of color options, all for only $5. *this next step is optional, and only for those who are going to house chickens in the doghouse.* Third, screw in a large wooden dowel for a sleeping perch. Chickens like to roost off the ground, and while this is technically a
duckhouse, Martha has been kicked out of the coop by the other girls, and will be bunking with the ducks (hopefully they get along, the ducklings are still to little to meet her). Ducks don’t perch, so you don’t need this option for them, continue on to step four.
Step four. Make a door out of free plywood you got off a remodel
jobsite. Ask first (but only if there are contractors around, otherwise, make off with the wood!) and take a piece you think will be big enough. Its best to cut this down with a table or circular saw, but I am afraid of the table saw and only had a
sawza (totally spelled that wrong by the way) so I used that for all my cuts. It chewed up the board pretty bad, but I hid that with some sanding and that white front piece that acts as a handle. I also added that bit of trim above the door to help keep out rain and drafts, and hides that the wood is kinda warped. The hinges came from the Restore too.
Step five, show your boyfriend all the great work you did while he was at work, get him all excited about the prospect of getting Martha out of his greenhouse, and then get him to push that darn
duckhouse over across the yard to where it will live. He will be happy to help you move it, cause he didn’t have to build it! This
duckhouse weighs so much its stupid. Its also really tall, to tall for me to carry cause I can’t lift it with my legs, cause standing up and holding onto it is as far off the ground as I can go. I can’t carry it with bent arms cause my arms aren’t that strong! So we did what the Egyptians did to build the pyramids, we used logs. Only less, and no slaves. We stuck two logs under the front of it, and Brandon pushed the back until the logs rolled out the back and then we’d do it all over again. It works pretty darn well, those Egyptians were smart! I don’t have a picture of this though, sadly. Step six is install the side door. I don’t have pictures of this step either, but I wish I had remembered to take them. I bought a small cabinet door at the Restore, and then just laid it on the side of the house where I wanted it to be and drew it on. Then I cut out the shape. Now I had a hole. I lined the door with 1×2′s as a frame. then attached the door to the top of the frame so that it rested on the
doorframe when closed. Right now, I just prop the door open with a stick, but when we build the proper yard for the house, I will figure out a better way to keep it open. I hung the water and food inside the house to keep it dry, and put
alot of straw down on the floor. Step seven is the really fun step, cause its painting! I borrowed some red paint from a friend (we just painted her shed red) and painted the trim with our house trim paint. I like it, all our outbuildings are different colors, but they all go together so well!
And
thats it! Its a house for birds! Martha moved in yesterday, the dog crate she was staying in is now her outdoor patio area. She seems to like it okay, better than the greenhouse cause shes near the other chickens but not getting pecked by them.
And I’ll finish off this blog with a couple pictures of the ducklings from yesterday. Their wing feathers are coming in right now, and they look like skeleton fingers. Seriously, they are the creepiest pinfeathers I have ever seen. Rows of skeleton fingers! But the rest is still cute. And their voices are changing, you hear a deeper “quack” with all the “peeps.” Another week and hopefully they will be out of my living room!
