Details of DIY Drainless Porch Potty

In my last post, I showed you my concept for a porch potty for my little dog. But as we all know, sometimes things work better in theory than in practice. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to be one of those times.

I forgot to get a before picture, but this pile of wood used to be a pallet i salvaged from a dumpster. The results were a small sheet of plywood (2'x3'), 3 two-by-fours (3' long) and what i'm going to refer to as remaining scrap. (might have gotten a little over zealous with the disassembling) 

If you decide to go the salvage route...it's very helpful to have two people, crowbars, and hammers with the claws on the back. My dad and i disassembled this pallet in about 10 minutes.

This is the supplies i gathered: The soda crate in front is only 1.5" tall (when laid flat). But if you get a more common style that's taller, you may need to change the size of your wood tray or cut it.. 

IMPORTANT!: just because it's called a 2x4, doesn't mean it's actual measurements are 2"x 4". It's actually more like 1.5" x 3.5". This link explains WHY. 

STEP 1: Cut down the Plywood down to size

I have a table saw available. But you could use a circular saw, a saws-all, a jig saw...basically just get it cut down to size. I originally was going to have the crate sit INSIDE of the wood tray walls, so i took the measurements of my tray and added 1.5 inches to each side for the width of the 2x4. 

STEP 2: Cut the walls down to size

Remember, i'm using all salvage wood. So i had to adjust the raw pieces before cutting them to length. 

Since the crate i got was so short...i decided to "rip" the 2x4s (cut along the grain aka...longwise) down to 1.5" by 1.5". And just in case you're wondering...yes i actually did all the work myself. Dad just sat back and took pictures - which may explain some of the shaky, tilted or unfocused pictures to follow.

Then i cut the walls to length. 

STEP 3: Dry fit assembly

No glue or screws or nails yet. You just want to make sure everything fits together. 

For this, i used what's called "butt joints". The end of the wood butts up against the side of the wood to form a joint. Had i wanted to make this a little nicer, i could have cut the corners at 45 degree angles and "Mitered" the joints. But this is for a dog and she happens to enjoy butts :)

It was at this point that my dad and I noticed something interesting about our crate: There was a lip on the edge!

So the design changed slightly: We moved the walls in slightly so that edge of the crate sits ON TOP of the walls at the lip instead of INSIDE. To do this, we cut the plywood and the wall pieces down just a little bit and moved the walls in and added a piece in the center to help support the middle of the crate (that's the little square in the middle: i cut off a small end of the scrap from the walls and glued it to middle of the plywood tray)

Originally, i was going to have at least 5 of those support pieces, one in each corner and one in the middle...but the lip on the crate took place of the corner pieces. The point of these was to keep the crate off the bottom of the tray where kitty litter/pee pads will collect the pee. 

STEP 4: Sand.

You don't want the plastic to get punctured, so you'll want to sand down all the splinters and sharp edges. 150 grit sandpaper should be fine. You can do a higher grit count if you're using nicer wood. But honestly, there was only so much i could do with a scrap pallet. 

STEP 5: Final assembly

I coated the bottom of the walls with glue and clamped them into place.

Then to secure it, i flipped it over and got out a trusty nail gun. You could do this with screws or regular nails, but...air nailers are so much fun!!!

Space the nails about 4-6" apart all the way around. 

For good measure, i screwed the walls to each other as well. these, were 4 inch deck screws and i pre-drillled the holes to prevent splitting. 

STEP 6: Finishing

I ran the sander along the edges again, and filled in some of the gaps with wood filler then set it up to dry. 

At some point between the point that last picture was taken, i added short square feet to the bottom to keep the tray off the deck so moisture wouldn't get trapped. Those were just glued and air nailed down. But unfortunately none of the pictures i have shows them. 

I suppose i could have waterproofed it, painted flowers on it or attached LED lights to it... but I just used a can of spray paint my dad had in his cabinet and let it dry. 

Then I took the whole kaboodle home, up 3 flights of steps (really this wasn't bad, it was maybe 15 pounds of material) put a pee pad on the bottom (until we get kitty litter), laid the crate in and covered with grass i stole from my parent's back yard. 

Drum roll please!!! 

Kira wasn't really sure what to make of it at first. Apparently it was good enough to eat because we spent the whole first day trying to get her to stop eating the grass. 

The second day, had the same problem. 

We'd let her out there, she'd try to eat it, then refuse to pee on it even when we shut her out there and waited. The minute we let her in, straight to the pee pad. I started to wonder if it just wasn't going to happen and this was a big waste of time and effort. 

Finally I did something a little different. 

Since i usually get up first around 6...i'm on morning potty patrol. I let her out of her crate to go potty and she runs right over to her pad and goes immediately. So this morning, i picked her up, and carried her outside and put her right on the grass patch. She wiggled for a minute, but then squatted and went potty on it. I praised her, gave her treats and a long belly rub. 

And my little Wigglebutt pranced her way back into the house very proud of herself. 

I'm setting a reminder by May to touch back to this topic and give you an update. Cover what worked, and what didn't, what issues we ran into and how we went about fixing them. 

I hope this is helpful to all the do it yourself dog people out there.