LOL! My Husband is a contractor, and as such not only does he build beautiful things, but has teh added bonus of bringing home leftovers, and scraps. When we built it, and yes I helped a bit! He asked how big should it be, well I said 5ftx5ft. He looked at me like I was insane, then said ok, well how tall? I said tall enough that our oldest can stand up in? She is 12 now. So it is up on blocks so they can go under, and have actually dug a den there, about eight feet up at the highest peak of the roof, 6 ft at the lowest, fully insulated and tyvekked (sp?), half log siding and green trim is waiting for the corners, green steel roof. Almost have the second one done in the division of the kennel, this one os only 3x3. He built it as I asked in dimensions and I almost sh** when he had it framed and walled in. He said "well YOU said this big, big enough for the pups when they are older and mom and dad, big enough for the kids to be witht hem (the kids spend hours in their "yard") so here it is a very BIG dog house! Iti s beautiful, I love it. He is very talented. We are building in 2 years, but recently have talked of building next year. We heat with oil, and needless to say we are considering other options.