A Hutch for Honey Bunny

Hi, friends!

It’s finally here! The long-awaited bunny hutch building tutorial!

I spent weeks looking for an outdoor hutch for Honey, but never could find one that I loved. Specifically, I really wanted a hutch with an arched door, a traditional roof, plenty of space for our bun to move around and adequate insulation to protect from heat as well as cold. As it turns out, that hutch does not exist. So I decided to build it myself!

I’ll be honest from the start on this one: this was not an easy project! After looking online and in my local farm store, I just couldn’t find a hutch that was quite what I was looking for. “No problem!” I thought. “My husband’s a builder. My dad’s a builder. I’ve seen them build all kinds of things! I can surely build a rabbit hutch!”

Yeah, no. Apparently construction skills aren’t absorbed via osmosis by proximity to people with said skills. It took me half a day to learn that I was way out of my depth.

Thankfully, my husband and dad both pitched in to help and my out-of-square box with legs became the bunny hutch of my dreams in no time! They helped me problem solve when latches didn’t fit properly, taught me how to use a countersink bit to keep the wood from splitting, and made a proper roof (complete with tar paper and real house shingles) to keep Honey dry. Let me tell you, I’ve never been more appreciative of the skill it takes to be a carpenter than I was during this project!

All that said, I’ll do my best to detail the steps we took to build this so that you can re-create it without the help of a professional carpenter :).

1.) Dimensions. I decided on a 3’ wide, 2’ deep, 4’ tall (to the BASE of the roof) structure. I sort-of eyeballed the roof pitch, which added about another 16 inches.

2.) Materials. I used 2x3’s for the main frame of the structure and 1x2’s for smaller details like the screen frames and door casings. The walls on the upper floor are made of T111, which is like an OSB with a finished exterior that looks like siding. The floor of the upper level is framed with 1x2’s and 1” rabbit wire is stapled from the top. On top of that is removable OSB. The arch around the front door is plywood and all of the screening is 1” galvanized hardware cloth (rabbit wire). For the roof, we used tar paper, light gray roof shingles and white metal flashing. The ramp is OSB and 1x2’s. The door hinges and bolt locks are all off the shelf at Lowe’s—I think a variety of things could work for those, depending on what you're after. I liked the matte black finish :). We also used deck screws, construction staples, exterior paint and silicone to seal the seams.

3.) Building it.

I started by building two boxes out of 2x3’s that would become the bottom of each floor. I attached the boards with deck screws and siliconed the joints together.

Next, I painted the boxes as well as my other 2x3’s and 1x2’s. In retrospect, I could have just waited and painted it all at once, but I didn’t want to have to deal with painting around the rabbit wire.

So this is where it gets tricky if you’re not used to building things. When attaching the boxes to the legs (the legs are the extra 2x3’s cut to 4’ lengths), it’s really important to use a measuring tape and a speed square to make sure everything is square. If this part isn’t done right, the whole structure will be wonky. Measure up from the bottom of your 4’ 2x3 legs and attach the first box. Then measure up to the height of the second floor and attach the second box.

Once this main structure is together (and square), the rest is just filling the gaps. I made wood frames for each of the four walls on the bottom and attached hardware cloth before screwing them into the main hutch frame. The bottom left panel was attached with hinges and a bolt latch so that it can swing open.

The top half of the hutch is made of T111 to provide a space that’s protected from weather. To make the arched door in the front panel, I drew an arch the size I wanted and cut it out with a jigsaw.

The top wall pieces were wedged in place by sliding them in from above (it’s important to get the cuts right on this part so that there aren’t any gaps) and then screwed to the front and back frame pieces.

I eyeballed the roof angle just based on what I thought looked best when my husband held up the pieces for me to see, and then we built the frame for the roof as pictured below with two boards joined at an angle in the front and back of the hutch (secured to the main frame), and another set of boards wrapped around the perimeter and attached to the first set. Make sure you don’t shortcut this roof structure part because there will be a lot of weight on the roof when it’s finished. Shingles are heavy!

Here’s what it looked like at this point.

Next, we used OSB on top of the roof frame to create our roof. As you can see, the whole family was helping with this part!

Next, we added tarpaper over the OSB. This creates a waterproof barrier that will keep the inside of the hutch dry.

At this point, we were in a hurry to get things done so I didn’t get progress photos of the last couple of things. But we added shingles over the tarpaper to finish the roof, plus white metal flashing. We also cut a frame for the arched door out of plywood, then secured it and caulked everything in place.

We also cut a rectangular opening out of the top left of the hutch and framed it out to create another larger door. This gave us three doors in total: two on top and one on the bottom.

We also cut two pieces of OSB to place over the frame of the floor on the second story. I intentionally wanted these to be removable so they can be taken out and replaced if they get soiled. The structural part of the floor is made with 1x2s and hardware cloth, as pictured earlier.

We also added a ramp leading from the first to second floors. This was made out of OSB and 1x2s.

We placed the hutch under our willow tree for added shade and weather protection, and it has worked out wonderfully! Honey loves her house and I love that it’s adorable to look at. The arched front door is probably my favorite bit—love is in the details, as they say 🤍.

That’s all for today, friends! Thanks for stopping by :).