This site was so useful in helping us prepare to bring Gus, a Flemish Giant, home. I loved looking at all of the cage ideas for inspiration! I wanted to post the setup we have for Gus along with some photos in case it’s helpful for anyone else looking to convert a dog crate. 

After going back and forth between building a NIC cage condo vs. getting a dog crate, we ultimately decided to go the dog crate route. We purchased an XXL dog crate meant for big dogs (it’s 55″L x 37″W x 46″H) and thanks to my husband’s handy work, we have two shelves to utilize some of the height of the cage. The levels are made from wire closet shelving and are supported by PVC pipes. We overlaid the closet shelving with Coroplast and secured some non-slip grippy drawer liner on top of that. So far Gus isn’t too interested in the shelves, so we’re thinking of adding a ramp until he’s a bit bigger and is more comfortable jumping. (The bottom shelf can easily hold the weight of my ~30 lb toddler so should be no problem for Gus )

After having Gus home for a few days we realized he needed a safe but somewhat contained space until he’s litter box trained, so we added a 4-foot-tall exercise pen to the front of his crate. This way he has more room but doesn’t have so much room that it makes him poop all over the house, and we can go in the pen to play with him. Below are a few photos of his cage before we added Gus and the pen to it. Some things are a little rearranged at this point, and it’s definitely a lot messier, lol. I’m not sure if the pics really do the size of the crate justice, so maybe I’ll try to get one with Gus in it for reference. Hopefully the setup we have with the crate and exercise pen will be sufficient for a fully grown Flemish, although we’re planning to eventually let him have run of the kitchen and living room while we are home.