Dog Door in the Wall Installation

Installing a dog door in the wall may seem intimidating at first, but it turned out to be way easier than I thought!

Oh my, the One Room Challenge! It gets me every time – I think I’m doing sooo great. Ahead of schedule and progressing at just the right pace. Then BAM! Week 4 hits and all of a sudden everything starts to fall apart…literally. I’m still working away at that little nook a shared on Instagram what seemed like forever ago. HOPEFULLY next week I’ll be sharing it. Cause that means I’ll be done. So, I know this post is a little late, but one thing I did finish in this space was installing a dog door in the wall. And let me tell you, we LOVE it.

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To be honest, we’ve had a dog door for a while. We installed a sliding glass door insert with a dog door in it in the kitchen.

This worked for a while, and it’s a great option for a temporary solution. However, it makes the door a bit smaller, and the flap would fly open all the time. Plus, the dogs are underfoot enough in the kitchen and it just wasn’t pretty. We are also getting new french doors installed in the kitchen, so we decided to move the door to the back. We had this little spot right by the fish tank, close to the feeding station…aka laundry room…that we decided would be perfect.

I ordered the PetSafe Wall Entry Aluminum Pet Door with Telescoping Tunnel because the price was right and I liked that it had two flaps. It seemed like that was a better bet for not letting all that air in, and it really is better. I also liked that it was telescopic, so it would fit in any sized wall. It was actually super easy to install. I was surprised at the ease of the installation. The first thing you have to do is cut a hole in the wall. This part was scary! I literally had a huge hole in the side of my house.

You find the studs before you start and cut the hole in between the studs. With this model, there was an easy template to use. I used a reciprocating saw to cut the inside drywall out. Then you install the inside frame and put the template in and cut the outside wall. I was super confused before I bought it, but I’m telling you it was so much easier than I thought it would be!

Once the hole is cut, it’s smooth sailing. All the instructions were super easy to follow and seriously, we love it. Slowly working my way to getting all the kids and dogs in the back ;).

The only thing I would have done differently is I would have added the support beam that the instructions say is optional. The telescoping frame is good, but it’s not enough on it’s own to support the weight of my dogs. So, I had to add in the support after one of the dogs got their foot stuck. So, I cut the bottom of the tunnel out and added the board in. You can’t see it unless you open the flap, but I really wish I would have put it in before that.

That’s about it. I also painted the fishtank case. This little area is done! I think, anyway. I’m thinking it might need some artwork, but I’ll get to that later. Maybe.

Okay, stick around you guys! This room is finally coming together and I am so excited to share with you everything that is going into this space. I am redoing this kids rec room/den as part of the One Room Challenge. See all the posts related to the room below. Three weeks down, three to go!!