A Chicken Coop Christmas Ornament

[bjmoose]

You could get a bigger truck!

I used to have a bigger truck. I had a 94 F150 with 8' long bed. I could throw a bunch of whole sheets of plywood in the back between the wheel wells, and then just close the tailgate and drive off. I loved that thing. I think my nephew still has it.

 

[bjmoose]

OK, here's todays construction update.

Started off with the right side panel. It's similar to the left, but is framed to support the nesting boxes.

Here we go.

I've had this jigsaw since my dad gave it to me. He bought it in the late 1960s sometime. So it lasted 50 years. But during the cutting, the blade bumped the workbench, and it was too much for the old dear. The motor still works, but the tiny screws that hold the blade in place are completely stripped out, and it'll no longer hold the blade. RIP.

Cutting the siding, after a trip to the hardware store for a new jigsaw.

And in place:

Time to move on to framing the floor. The outer perimeter is all 2x4s, but the inner joists are 2x3s.

Covered with 3/8" plywood. That's much lighter than you'd use on a house obviously, and flexes if a person walks on it. But it does support a human. It overhangs the floor framing, so it'll overlap the wall framing when assembled.

Notched to interlock with wall framing. I notched pretty aggressively to save time. You'll see big gaps in a follow on photo.

I tend to end up doing jobs like this by myself. Sometimes it would be handy to have a second pair of hands. But I attached a temporary support leg to the walls to make them free standing, so I could hang the floor from them.

...and then lifted the floor. It hangs by the subfloor plywood being supported by the wall framing joists. This is obviously *not* how houses are conventionally constructed.

My goal is to be able to relatively easily break the coop down to transport it. So the floor attaches to the walls with 3/8" bolts.

I dunno about you, but when I'm constructing anything asymmetrical, I get easily confused. Building a shed once, I cut a sheet of siding that was the mirror image of what I needed, so I had to buy another sheet. So here, I'm labelling the floor to minimize the chance of any confusion. Also, this shows the gaps that I was talking about earlier.

Starting to frame the back panel. From here on out, the sketches I drew start being more vague, with just enough info to provide direction and get a rough idea of the amount of lumber to buy at the lumber yard. But from here until completion, every piece has to be individually measured against the place it's supposed to fit. Can't read lengths off of plans anymore. We know that the roof support beam is 48", and we know the height of the top plates of the sides, because we can measure them.

Studs attached to the bottom plate to make them freestanding.

It's important to check crossways dimensions. We need to keep the sides parallel, and we need to keep the studs square. My first attempt created a trapezoid, and I had to recut one cross member 3/16" longer.

Taking the frame wall off to measure and attach the top diagonals that'll support the siding.

Back side resting in place. As with the floor, it'll be bolted into place for relatively easy disassembly and reassembly. I'd hoped to cut and install the siding today, but I have to be real careful setting the exact top height. The last time I built a shed, I only cut the siding *after* I'd cut the rafters, and I may need to use that technique here.

But there's obvious progress. Yesterday at 4PM, all there was was a pile of lumber.

From the front:

 

[jthornton]

Will the whole back side open up for easy cleaning?

JT

 

[21hens-incharge]

I am wondering the same thing.

 

[aart]

Will the whole back side open up for easy cleaning?JT

I am wondering the same thing.

IIRC the whole back will be 2 doors.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Thanks aart. I don't think I am all the way awake yet.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Looking good!

Maybe a little to much info for my AM brain to process, (I don't see a sleepy emoji) but still enjoy seeing it come along.

Those internal notch gaps look to be no big deal.

I painted my floor and all my interior walls. Partly to brighten it up. But mostly to combat ambient humidity from effecting the wood. Will you be using sheet vinyl on the floor? People seem to really like the ease of cleaning it. I haven't yet made the investment as it isn't quite cheap... never mind how much I have already spent!

 

[bjmoose]

Will the whole back side open up for easy cleaning?

JT

Yeah, in the original sketch, the chickens went in and out the "front" and you opened the "back" for cleaning. But that would require placing the coop where there's access to both sides. Mrs. bjmoose wants to place it backed up against a wall, where there's only access to one side. So the side you're seeing will be fixed in place. The "front" will have big doors for cleaning, and the "pop" door will be built inside one of those doors.

That'll be fun to lay out.

 

[aart]

eah, in the original sketch, the chickens went in and out the "front" and you opened the "back" for cleaning. But that would require placing the coop where there's access to both sides. Mrs. bjmoose wants to place it backed up against a wall, where there's only access to one side.

Oh that's right!

 

[bjmoose]

Construction update day 3.
There are some plans sketches I should have included earlier but I'll show them now.
There's a trend in my construction sketches from more specific early on, to more vague. Early decisions make late decisions easier. Which piece overlaps? What's on top? What is the baseline for all these measurements? Once those critical cornerstone decisions are established, it becomes much easier to build to a concept and take the measurements as needed when it's time to cut and fit a piece, vs. having every measurement out on the plan by rote.

The plan for the floor is critical. It shows the floor joists, and exact dimensions. You can't guess on this one.

Here's the plan sketch for the back wall built yesterday. It's pretty detailed, and shows the heights for the ridge board, top plate support, and what I'll call the "secondary support."


The opening front sketch is *very* vague, and pretty conceptual. It existed mostly in my head. To follow along and build it, you'll need to look at the photos.


But, that's where we left off yesterday! Time to start framing up the front side panel. It's actually much closer to conventional housing construction, with a bottom plate, top plate, and door header. Although the door header and top plate are actually kind of one and the same - since the entire wall will open as a set of double doors. Still, one half of the top plate needs to support the ridge beam, and so it gets a doubled 2x3.

Here's the basic start:

And the completed view. Again, the measurements are taken to fit the prior construction.

We can't cut the siding for the front and back until we determine the rafter overlap. So it's now time to cut some rafter ridge and top-plate supports, and the secondary support, and then measure, cut, and notch some rafters.

Here's the top plate support. Take note of the extra verticals. These align the supports, and will allow us to fasten down the roof later.

This photo emphasizes the point that the top-plate roof supports rest on the side walls (and thus the coop legs) and NOT the front/back wall support studs.

OK, here we have all the rafter supports in place: ridge support, top plate supports and the "secondary support." At this time, all these are just resting there. Only the floor and left/right sides are bolted. Hit it hard enough and everything falls over like dominoes.

Time to start cutting and notching some rafters. I arbitrarily choose six inches of overhang.

This is the cut for the top ridge support. In all cases, the notches are 1.5" into a 1x4 rafter.

And the cuts for the secondary support and top plate support look like this:

Here's rafter test fit number one. They all line up. That's a good thing.

Plan view of the test fit. This shows the notches better:

Rafters situated into place:

And this test fitting showed I'd made a measurement error. On the front I'd excluded the bottom plate thickness from the ridge support, while on the back I'd *included* it. The simple solution was to shim the secondary support point on the back framing with a scrap of bottom plate.

And, this is the money shot. We framed and test fitted the front side, ridge supports, and rafters in order to answer the question: How much top siding clearance do I need on the back panel???

2 and 3/4" taken at this point. Would have been easier to take it at the other side of the stud, when it would have come closer to 2"

And, at the ridge support - 2"

So, now, finally, we can go back and measure and install the siding on the back side. It's two pieces, centered and overlapped on the ridge support stud. Remember, this is structural siding, so it adds shear strength to the whole when properly fastened.

Also note the overlap at the bottom, to match the overlap of the floor joists on the left and right side siding.

I actually installed a complete 48" x 48" piece, then trimmed it to size after it was attached to the framing. But really, the only major trim was the diagonal, and a tiny clearance on the far right side - basically the "overlap" section.

After the second part is attached and trimmed:

This shows that those diagonal top stud supports DO NOT run parallel to the roofline. That's OK - they're only there to provide a convenient attachment point for the siding so it doesn't have a large unsupported dimension.

The back side has now been fastened into place with four 4" by 3/8" bolts.

Time to call it a day. Tomorrow, we add siding on the front, cut the right side rafters, and panel (but not shingle) the roof.