Cheryl's Hen House...

[beautifulpirate]

I also wanted to say that when we were growing up we always had chickens along with a few head of cattle, horses and Old Jack the Mexican burro. My mom always loved her chickens. Back then there was little to no thought given to the coop or run. It was just some fencing with a pitiful little building that gave them minimal shelter. She will soon be 89 and has lived in our neighborhood for the past 7 years. I think she is more excited about us getting chickens that we are. She came down on her golf cart today and spend several hours just hanging out with us and talking about having chickens. Needless to say she thinks we are a little nuts for going to the lengths we are going just for chickens. e

She's very anxious...a little too anxious in fact.. for us to actually get the chickens.  Anyway, I just wanted to share the story. It was great to see her so excited.

Awww, that warms my heart. My Granny loved chickens. Unfortunately she passed some years ago but I often think of my trips as a child, to her home, where she would take me into the chicken run and show me the hens. Coincidentally, we now live fairly close to the site of her home back then (it burned down shortly before she died).

And I absolutely agree about YouTube. I feel like there should be a YouTube college credit sometimes. If you watch enough of the right videos, it is amazing what you can learn.

 

[TerryH]

My second day off went pretty well today...once I got over being too sore to breathe.

Up and down the ladder a zillion times yesterday was tough on my old body but I thoroughly enjoyed working on the coop. The forecast was for an all day rain but it was just cloudy this morning so I decided to work outside as long as I could. It never rained until 2:30 so I got quite a bit done.

I finished the soffit and most of the trim. Ran out of primed cedar so I didn't get the back wall done but everything else on the outside is pretty well complete. Once the rain came I moved into the shop and built the human door and right as I was getting it done the rain slacked up enough for me to get it installed. I also made a little deck to make the step up into the coop easier. Here are the pics from today.

And the money shot. This is basically the view from our master bedroom.

I'll be back at it after work tomorrow. I'll be taking off Friday evening as I have a speaking engagement but back at it on Saturday. We're getting super excited to get the coop done and get some chicks!!! Then onto the run.

Thanks for looking.

Terry

 

[TLWR]

Looks great

 

[TerryH]

Looks great

Thank you!!

 

[beautifulpirate]

We had random stormy gloomy weather all day yesterday too. Even had a couple local tornado touchdowns... Where abouts are you all located?

 

[TerryH]

We had random stormy gloomy weather all day yesterday too. Even had a couple local tornado touchdowns... Where abouts are you all located?

We're east of Springdale in NW Arkansas.

 

[beautifulpirate]

We're east of Springdale in NW Arkansas.

We lived in Springdale for two years when I was a kid. Can't speak for it now but back then, it was practically crime free. We would leave the car doors unlocked everywhere we went. It was such a bizarre change from Tulsa aka the meth capital of the US. Anyway, sorry for hijacking, just checking to see if we were neighbors haha. State neighbors at least.

 

[TerryH]

We lived in Springdale for two years when I was a kid. Can't speak for it now but back then, it was practically crime free. We would leave the car doors unlocked everywhere we went. It was such a bizarre change from Tulsa aka the meth capital of the US. Anyway, sorry for hijacking, just checking to see if we were neighbors haha. State neighbors at least.

My parents moved here in 1950 so it's where I grew up and have always lived. It's not the same little town it used to be. Crime free would definitely not be my how I would describe it now.

 

[TerryH]

Had some time to make a little more progress this afternoon. I started with getting the electrical rough in done. We're going to have a light and 2 plugs in the coop. 1 plug will be by the switch and the other will be in the ceiling.

On the opposite side of the shared wall I have some shelving in the compressor room that frankly has become a junk collector so we decided to close up the shelves in the compressor room side and cut a hole for access inside the coop. Here's a pic of the shelves.

A little extra framing and some OSB and it was closed in. I'm going to put styrofoam board on this wall and on the OSB to help insulate the sound of the compressor from the coop. Hopefully that will be good enough.

Here's the opening in the coop. I used the circular saw to cut out the siding and a saws all to cut the 2x4 that was in the opening. I trimmed the opening with pine 1x4"s.

I used the siding cutout and some more 1x4's to make the doors.

This should make some pretty handy storage for Cheryl. The shelves are 51" tall, 24" deep and 36" wide.

Thanks for checking out our project!!

Terry

 

[Gridguru]

This is flippin' phenomenal!