I ended up having to buy a couple of basic, hinge sets for the doors because one of the original hinges broke off from sheer age I guess.
Total items I had to buy from the local Home Depot were the following..
two sets of hinges for the doors
a roll of wire mesh
one 4' x 8' sheet of cheap plywood
4 L-shaped steel brackets to support the feet
one slide lock
All total, I spent less than $50.00 from beginning till completion of the project.
I re-used old drywall screws and finished off a half-emptied bottle of Elmers wood glue for most of the assembly. Pilot-drilled and counter sank each screw location.
The angled roof was built simply by laying two 1x2 pine strips across the top. The first on it's EDGE at the top of the front side, the second on it's SIDE halfway between the front and back sides of the former cabinet. Then, I lay down a sheet of the plywood I had previously trimmed so that there would be a 2" edge around each side of the hutch. This left gaps of course, on the sides of the angled roof. I covered those up simply by laying in a couple of left-over 1x2 pine strips right underneath the angled sides of the roof plywood.
It looks like decorative trim. Worked out great.
Once I had completed assembly, my wife and I placed the hutch on a tarp out on the front yard and let the children paint the hutch with white latex paint I had on hand.
As soon as we had ensured that every bit of wood had been sealed with a good layer of the white paint (both top and BOTTOM). The kids were given the serious task of beautifying the hutch.
You might feel the need to point out that the hutch looks like it was painted by a bunch of monkeys.
well... that's because, it WAS painted by a bunch of monkeys. Children monkeys.
4 of 5, the climber, felt that he needed to do his best work on the roof of the hutch.
And even 5 of 5 got into the project... mostly helping out by chewing on things and getting underfoot. In the end, she somehow got paint all over her feet and required an emergency feet washing in a bucket of water.
All and all tho, I think they did a great job.
The bunnies now have three times the space to hang out, the kids got to help out and do some empressive painting... and we were able to do it all inexpensively through the creative recycling of materials and hardware.
