EMPTY SPACE UNDER STAIRS DOG KENNEL

Empty Space Under Stairs Dog Kennel 

So after many failed attempts and the Texas Heat we couldn't quite figure out what to do with our PUPs.  They hate the kennels and I know people swear with kenneling your dogs, but our dogs think kennels are like the Black Hole.  So after googling and researching i came upon some images on PINTEREST, whod of thunk it, right? Gosh Pintrest has everything i guess, maybe even how to hide a dead body, kidding kidding.  Anyway, this is how our project got started.

My fiance first cut a hole in the dry wall to see what was going on under the stairs, a bit scary cause you kinda have to stick your head in and look, Whos scared of spiders??? you guessed it me .... so he was nice enough to do that part. Lo and behold we found the builders lunch, yes old taco wrappers under there for almost 10 years, yummy right !!!! So here we cut out the two by fours after we realized there was a support beam running at the top a few inches from the top opening, Thank you jesus, we didnt have to do much work there.

the 2x4 on the left side of the screen was cut out with a hand saw , you can see the 2x4 on the top 

This was the space under the stairs initially we were going to use
it for the doggies but opted not to because we would really have 
a hard time getting back there for accidents or ect.

After cleaning after these lovely gentlemen or women who left there leftovers under the stairs we assessed the situation, also you can see the wire that was not secured and didnt have much slack.  We had to cut small groves in the wood to secure that wire which was hott.

 33" height x 43" wide x 54" length was our space.

This is the led light we bought for the inside, battery powered hangs with a nail.

after cleaning the area we took a trip to home depo to get the materials we would need to finish the project.  6 small insulation boards, 2 drywall, 3 boards of trim, Drywall Nails, and Trim Nails, Dawn cause i ran out of kitchen soap lol, and battery powered light and batteries. And a soda cant forget that. 

took a box cutter and measured out the areas, this is a picture of the placement

These are a few more pictures of the insulation, we didnt nail them in, they were pretty snug going in so opted to not do that.

Well after this step came my not so favorite , DRYWALL. Why is it not my favorite, because the dust goes everywhere, even where the sun dont shine, so yeah deftly not my favorite thing.  So i measured and cut and my fiance installed with a little help when it came to the ceiling.  FYI make sure you have really sharp blades for Drywall cutting.

Now full disclosure we are not savy at any of this stuff so this was all trial and error really, I will tell you that nailing the drywall down was not perfect but we covered some of the nails with drywall paper and putty.  The last picture was after we had sanded everything.  We were pretty impressed with our selves, you know the whole high fiving each other , although not perfect by any means.

After slaving all of saturday we left the rest for sunday, YAY !!!!!! SLEEP !!!!! 

Good morning , now time to paint.  Fyi i totally missed the pictures of the trim going up, We went through all three Trims we bought because we couldn't get the corners right, so we seriously winged it, We both sucked at geometry !!!! We used an old plastic shower curtain to keep the paint off the floor. 

Ahhhh finally the end, after we were done, we really couldnt believe how well it all turned out below are just a few pictures of what it looks like with the pups, we are planning on doing vinyl on the ground for easy clean up and maybe a backsplash but for now this is were we are at, feel free to ask me any questions, if theres any thing i can help answer i will try and get back to yall :) FYI my dogs love it , at first a little apprehensive but we used an old baby gate that we will late hinge down but for now just using the pressure.  I am adding a sign at the top, and just using a dog pillow for the floor. 

GOOD LUCK !!!!