I kind of doubt it’s pine; the long little speckles suggest and open-grain hardwood, though the stain makes it hard to determine the species. I’d suspect oak or ash, though the grain doesn’t quite look right for either. If it were pine, I’d expect to see some gouging or dents in a pine table, since pine is so soft. And even with wood conditioner, pine is really difficult to stain, especially dark colors. This would be about the best stain job on pine I’ve ever seen. I’ve done a little experimentation with undercoats/pore sealers for staining blotch-prone woods, and I’ve found wipe-on polyurethane to be the best. Two thin coats of that work reasonably well under gel stain on pine - better than wood conditioner, varnish, and other types of polyurethane. It might work for you here as well, though you’ll still want to at least scuff sand the surface with 320 grit or higher for the poly to bond.

Thank you! Will check out the code.

Ask for insulation material at the store, it's a special material. You can also use pieces of foam, or spray foam. You will of course need to sandwich whatever material you get between solid layers; one layer to the outside but also one on the inside (foam can disintegrate if not protected, and insulation material can cause rashes).

Keep in mind that insulation should go in all the walls as well as the floor and ceiling.

It's also important to raise the dog house off the ground so it's not in direct contact or it will leech heat like crazy. You can put it on anything, bricks, pieces of wood, just make sure it can't fall off when the dogs bounce in and out.

Moisture isolation is also important on the floor side, a layer of tarp would be good. Also some kind of mat or rug wouldn't go amiss on the floor.

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Honestly, you will never deal with them on your own. Exterminator. Now!

Any suggestions on what to use?

Get an exterminator asap. Have them heat treat the whole house. If that doesn't kill them, burn the house down

My wife and I got bit by bedbugs in a hotel once. Luggage lived in the garage (far from the bedrooms) for months. Laptops and other electronics went in the freezer for a few days. Clothes went through high heat wash regardless of if it was “safe” or not.

Fortunately we didn’t bring any into our house… but I was still paranoid for months after just one night or bedbug bites.

You need to wipe your ass better

Then you will definitely need some insulation too.

Fun Fact, bedbugs have a razor-sharp penis that is stabbed into their mates' abdomen bypassing the female's genitalia entirely

Burn down your house! On a more serious note, hire a professional

Lots of posts here about getting an exterminator, but this costs loads and doesn’t guarantee the bed bugs will be gone.

I live in the UK and found bedbugs a couple of weeks after a holiday trip. I managed to eradicate them by doing the following:

• Learn about bedbugs, how to spot them, where they live, the eggs, everything. Information is power and you want to eradicate all of them. Is it a spec of dirt or a bedbug? Doesn’t matter it needs to go, be overly aggressive with your cleaning.
• Clean the affected room(s) and treat it as a contamination area, anything you move out of that room into another spot, you will have to clean that spot too.
• Bin all cardboard or fabric you cannot wash or freeze. This includes memory foam pillows and toppers I’m afraid. Fabric like curtains that you can’t wash at 60°c needs to go in the freezer for 4 days to kill the eggs. Wash everything, doesn’t matter how free of bedbugs it looks, wash it anyway.
• Your mattress needs to be steam cleaned, on both sides, but do this after you’ve cleaned everything else. Remember your mattress needs to dry too.
• Use thin bleach solution to wipe everything down, focus on any woodwork like skirting boards, cupboards and bed frames as they burrow into the surface. Remove any rotten or loose wood completely.
• Get some good bug spray, you’ll need a few cans and spray this on the cleaned surfaces. If you can find where the bedbugs came from and follow that to the bed, spray this area with prejudice.
• You can use a bug bomb, but remember this will only reach some areas, it won’t cover under the bed or in cupboards, hence why wiping those yourself is more effective.
• Vacuum every floor, sill, nook and cranny, imagine you’re a terminator eliminating all existence of life (because that’s the plan) If you think you’ve vacuumed enough, you haven’t. Bleach the vacuum and wash the filters after.
• Sleep somewhere else, in fresh clean bedding that has been nowhere near the contaminated room (all my bedding was affected so I had to sleep under a towel the first night) the cleaning process takes time so you might be sleeping elsewhere for a while. Remember to de-contaminate your new sleeping area as well after you’re done.

Extreme heat or freezing kills the eggs but the gestation period is 2 weeks so you will need to stay vigilant for this long, continue cleaning and treating everything as a contamination area until you’re certain you’ve done all you can and there is no sign of them.

I spent about £200 on laundry service and cleaning supplies, but that was a lot less than an exterminator and I successfully got rid of them.

There’s a product that used to be called EcoRaider (I think it’s called EcoVenger now) that worked for me. It’s pet safe, kills eggs, and has residual effects for two weeks. I applied it EVERYWHERE, then applied it again two weeks later as recommended. I sprayed a bedbug and it seized up instantly and died.

I can’t recommend it enough, I was freaking the F out when the infestation started. Check it out online, it has awards from Entomology societies.

I think it could have extincted birds on the continent.

I read somewhere that we almost extincted bedbugs back when we used to use DDT in bedrooms... but then we discovered how horrible DDT is... I wish we had kept the DDT slightly longer so we could have extincted them.

How would I go about making a gate so I can go in/come out?

So central Texas style weather? So sun shade, wind shade, rain protection... Cold but not for long - you could do the diy route with cattle panels and then make a plywood and 2x4 box with a slight slope to the top to shed water. Solar screen material from home depot/lowes can shade it really easy and is cheap, They also have a waxed canvas tarp that is water proof and ready to hang on the kennel.

Asking my.mom if it's ok for me to set up something on her and her fiances property- it's owned by them, so no pesky landlord to need permission from

If I want to go the buying used items route for some/all of what I'd need, it seems to me that living in an area where there's a fair number of people that raise cattle may have some older but still useable things I could buy from them

In winter it rarely snows enough for there to be more than a very small layer of it covering the ground- but in the past...5 years maybe it snowed enough on two separate occasions that the areas I lived inat the time pretty much shut down.

We do sometimes have bad.storms come through, wind afaik hasn't reached hurricane level speeds as far inland as I am.

Ah, very true! With the not DIY kennel being allowed, I hope that means my DIY one will be too- but it's better to ask first just in case

I want them to be comfortable in both the very cold (the lowest it was this winter was in the low single digits- even the water in their bowl froze inside- only heater I have is crap), and the very hot- I think I already mentioned triple digits are.common.once summer really starts up?

Had to look up what you meant by cattle fencing- didn't know that was the name for thestuff. About how many feet would you recommend I buy? Depending on the cost, I may just get one roll to start with, expanding when I can afford to

You might want to double check your agreement whether it allows you to build something like a kennel.