How to make a dog bowl food station

[Wayne]

Pet food bowls can look untidy and messy just sitting loose on the floor, I decided to make a dedicated Doggy Bowl Food Station for our dog Repo. I browsed Pinterest and YouTube for pictures & ideas and in the end settled on something reasonably basic. Some of these things are real furniture pieces with slide out bowl drawers or food storage.

I started out by glueing two pine boards together lengthways to create a single board wide enough for the top, to house the stainless steel bowls that I bought.

I sanded the board through the grits finishing with 240 grit for a nice smooth finish.

Then using a home made circle cutting jig attached to the base of the router proceeded to cut out the holes that the bowls would eventually sit in. I traced the outer of the bowl with a pencil then measured the lip/rim of the bowl to calculate the cutout size.

I didn't have a plan (or mud map) I was just plodding along with the end result vision in my mind.

I wanted to use Match Pine paneling for the body of the unit and so screwed and glued a framework under the top that the match pine could nail to.

I then made the sides and ends which incorporated bracing and base panels which would lock it all together and give it some strength.

A test fit of the front and back together with the top and taking the final measurements for the ends.

The glueing, brad nailing and clamping it all together, no mitred joints ends just butting up against the sides.

I had a range of moulding I had sourced from a woodwork shop closure and experimented to find which I thought looked best.

I rubbed in some Mahogany stain then cut the moulding with mitred ends.

Mouldings attached and stained, I botched up the filling and sanding of the nail holes in the mouldings and this reacted badly to the stain, but went ahead anyway.
And having a peak of how it will look with the Bowls inserted.



First coat of Minwax Wipe On Poly after rubbing back with 0000 Steel Wool, I applied 3 coats in all for the finished product.

Happy Workshopping!

[Andy_Mann]

@Wayne

Nice work, but how come the 2 bowls, soup & mains, or mains & dessert? : )

[Wayne]

One of the bowls is for water.

[Kermit]

I'm enjoying seeing your projects @Wayne. Many thanks for sharing. 

[Andy_Mann]

@Wayne

GOTCHA!!! : )  

Congrats on the set up, it looks great.

We bought a simple adjustable bowl stand for one of our elderly little mates (sadly in Dog Heaven now) when we noticed that he started spreading his legs to reach the bowl on the floor. It's a 2 bowl stand, but our 8 monther likes to scoff half of his meal, then dib into his way too soft brother's bowl, then finish off his own. For the moment, I've been putting my foot on the post between the bowls, & that seems to deter him, so with some pereverence & time, it should all work out.