So you kind get what you pay for right? I mean if money, or time, or skill were no object, you and I both would be hiring Ty Pennington to build us a palatial doggy-manor... But it is, and as much as I love my dog, she's a dog, she rolls in feces, she doesn't have high standards, and though I have sewed extra-large pockets into my dungarees in case I need to carry rolls and rolls of cash, I have kids, I'm lucky to have enough change at the end of the month to fill my gas tank, so I ain't spending more than I absolutely have to, for my hound. I'll give her an extra milk-bone, she'll be fine.. That being said, this badboy was cheap, not like balsa wood, worrying about my 60-lb lab doing a "Hey Kool-Aid" through the side of it, but cheap in that when my 10 year old leaned on the side of it, you could see the whole thing flex. On a positive note, it came in a nice big box, there was one gouge, but nothing important was broken, there were very few parts in the box, most of the parts were pre-assembled into panels and the panels were fairly easy to put together. I think I added 2-3 wood screws to the roof, just because I felt like it would be a little more secure that way. I was pretty easily able to lift it and relocate it, this house seems lighter than the old plastic one of the same size that I pitched out to use this one. Also, the dog house had a fairly pervasive scent of red cedar, which will be nice for helping insects stay away. So if you don't count epic droughts, mudslides and earthquakes, we don't really have "weather" here in Ca (according to my friends from Idaho) so I didn't think I was going to have a lot to worry about putting this in the backyard. However a few days after I completed construction, the roof of this doghouse got wet, and immediately buckled. Not terribly buckled, and it went away as soon as it dried up, but the roof panel is made of a thin tongue-and-groove cedar plank, glued to a veneer, glued to thin plywood, it looks like the planks swelled up and bubbled the veneer off the plywood? Overall, it was about what I was expecting to get for a $100 doghouse, and seems like it will work just fine for what I want it for. I would recommend this with caveats,,, as long as you are looking for a low-price wooden doghouse, that looks kinda clean and nice too, I don't regret what I spent on this and would recommend it to others. UPDATE: Well now I've owned this for a while, I have to tell you something I didn't know at first, apparently my dog thinks this house is delicious! She didn't eat ALL of it, but she had a fantastic time gnawing the corners of the roof off and peeling the roof planks off of the veneer... So I bought a half-sheet of 5/8 OSB, and 30' of drywall edge banding (galvanized metal channel) and a box of tiny screws and proceeded to harden this badboy like it was MadMax's truck! I put the ply sheet ontop and made a new roof, screwed the hell of of it, and rimmed every edge she could possibly chew with galvanized steel... ugly as hell, but muchnless delicious!
