It all started with this chest.
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And, of course, a desire to have chickens. We had visited BYC previously and were inspired by the many beautiful designs. Nonetheless we are not builders, and we did not want to make the most flash chicken coop in the neighborhood. In fact, we wanted to see if we could make the whole thing and be up and running for ..... free, actually. So that was our guiding principle.

In other words, we were going to do this without seven trips to Home Depot/Lowe's, or or in our case, the Mitre 10, to buy framing hardware, chipboard, shingles, tarpaper, glue, paving stones, you name it, and maybe a new power tool or two ;-) I get wanting something to look nice. I also get enjoying the process of construction, and being willing and able to put money towards it. However we are going to come at this from the other end. We want three shavers, maybe a dozen and a half eggs per week, and we want to do all this with a cost effective, rational, whole-family fun approach. A lot to bite off?
So we had this old linen chest sitting in the garage. That grayish paper lining the inside of the lid? Well when you peel that off, there's blue. And when you peel the blue off, there's a floral pattern. It's old, and we weren't using it, but we did think: now that would make a good laying box for chickens.
Not to mention that it has a built-in hinged door for ease of access. Thank you BYC designers for pointing out the importance of that one!


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Next sections:
Framing the run
Paint it, wrap it, sleeping quarters
Just add chickens