Merry Pet MPS002 Wood Room with a View Pet House

The first thing I noticed when opening the box was that the smell of cedar wood wafted out. It smells great, and that was an unexpected surprise.The box (and hence the completed product) is lighter than I expected. I'm happy about that. I had been a little worried that it would be heavy and cumbersome to move from downstairs to upstairs or vice versa.Assembly is easy and took about 20–30 minutes. All you need is one philips screwdriver or drill. I used a screwdriver since I didn't have my drill handy, but I would recommend the drill, if possible. The screw holes are typically drilled through on the outward-facing part but not on the inner part, which means that you have to drive the screw through the wood. The cedar is soft so it's not too bad, but it would be quite a bit easier with a drill.The craftsmanship is surprisingly good for an $80 all-wood. Everything lined up perfectly.The inside area is about 17" by 17". We bought a 22" by 15" pad (since we couldn't find a square one) and it fits in there perfectly (it curves slightly up the walls on the pad's longer dimension).We put ours in our bedroom facing the bed and decided to only install two of the pieces of lattice. It fit perfectly, the sunroof being only a half-inch lower than the bed itself.Worth every penny.

Easy to assemble! Might need an electric screw driver for faster assembly but the pieces were easy to put together(pretty obvious what belonged with what) and it was ready in 30 minutes! Take the parts out, match them up, match the screws up to the holes where they belong, tighten them, and you're done. Made from real wood which makes it sturdy, and a nice piece of furniture that compliments your house for your pup. My only complaint is the super narrow staircase.. I'm convinced that the stairs were made only for a cat. If your dog doesn't have problems jumping up onto high platforms then the staircase won't be an issue. All it takes is a big leap for my dog, as if he were to jump on our couch or the bed. Carmelo is 21 pounds and has a super long body and he fits perfectly in the top of the castle, unfortunately the bottom scares him a bit. BUT, since he loves it so much it gets 5 stars anyway. My boyfriend calls this thing his(our pup's) castle and he melts every time he comes home and sees how cute he looks in the window sleeping in the top floor of his castle. Like Macy's around Christmas time and the puppies in the window sleeping soundly.It was a HIT, for our little one.Again, Dog owners, beware of the narrow staircase. The same seller sells separate staircases that fit perfectly if you are specifically concerned about the stairs.

Other reviews have covered many aspects of the product, I'll cover things I noticed after putting it together earlier today.Nice cedar smell. Wood is a very low grade with plenty of marks, filled in bits and so forth. Its hardly fine wood but its priced accordingly. I bought this to replace the styrofoam/plastic bin sleeping spot for a feral cat that hangs around my house. I'm not sure its nice enough to be an 'inside' piece of furniture but its certainly nicer looking than the plastic bin and its sitting in my covered entry way.First off, the wood is extremely thin so don't count on much insulation from that. The slats of wood are also not evenly pushed together before being stapled to the edges. There are 20 or so gaps that you could stick a butter knife into. So on its own it'll allow quite a bit of air infiltration and its not something you could fix with a tube of silicone caulking. The bottom part also fits irregularly inside and leaves a gap all of the way around.I also found several predrilled screw holes not predrilled, and one part of the 'fence' hadn't been drilled out for a wood peg to fit in. I've seen other reviews that showed not all four corners of the bottom cut out to fit. Bottom line is this is a low quality control item and chances are you're going to have to do a little minor drilling or cutting.Its easy to put together, just look over the instructions for a few minutes. Even having to do a little drilling it only took me about 15 minutes to put together.To fix the excessive gaps, I tore apart the box it came in, lined the whole thing with cardboard, then a layer of the bubble wrap the parts were wrapped in, then I cut a square of the bubble wrap, cut it up the middle and taped it to the inside of the door to hold out the cold. I also put a 2" foam board in the bottom. Good enough for northern california winters.This is big enough for a very large cat or small dog, or two small cats. I only put in a couple of screws to hold the top slab on, so I can remove it to clean and rearrange the inside. The ladder also requires one screw on the bottom right to hold that steady.All in all a decent looking little outdoor 'shelter' for mild winters, if you have a covered area to put it in. I don't think this would take much rain or direct sun all day long.