Welcome Snogrl, I guess you are getting more opinions than you ever thought possible.
I have to mostly agree with Carrie, Actually we do have crates, two of them. One for Daisy and one for Perry. We leave the door open for Perry and he goes in when he feels like it for a nap and he wants to sleep in it at night. I tried letting him loose but he wanted in his crate and cried until I latched his door. Daisy does not use her crate never goes in during the day or at night, we have a couple of beds around the house and she sleeps in them during the day. However if we are going on a extended trip we fold our back seat down and they travel in the crates for safety sake. If we go out for a few hours and it is nice outside they stay on our patio. Especially during the winter when we go out we leave them in the kitchen, they have a rug, toys and both their crates are in there and we have a kiddie gate between the kitchen and den. They can go in the crate or play or lay on the rug.
I don't really like the crates, too much confinement for an animal. I would be really wary of putting a small puppie in one and keeping it in there for 3 or 4 hours. That is a long time to expect the pup to hold it and sleep. The idea of having a puppy is to enjoy it not confine it. Snogrl maybe you could get some kiddie gates and at least confine it to one room, where it could move about. We have four kiddie gates that we use when we travel or in the house when we have company that Perry and Daisy don't like.
Good luck with your new puppie, are you sure you are ready to take on that responsibility
right now, it takes a lot of work and patience to bring up a pup.
Jackie