My "Pinterest" Project Shed Build

[Finnie]

I've been dreaming about doing this ever since I got my first chickens, a year and a half ago. I was really inspired by all the gorgeous sheds and chicken coops I found on Google image searches, and Pinterest. Well, the company I found to build the basic structure is coming today to get started!

I took some before photos, and my intention is to take a lot of "during" photos too, as long as I don't get in their way too much. They are going to build the basic structure for me, and then I am going to outfit the interior for ultimate chicken convenience, and I am going to do the exterior siding myself, because I have a dream of making it look like a vintage shed that has been standing for a hundred years.

This photo from Better Homes and Gardens was my main inspiration:



Mine won't have church windows, to my chagrin. The day I first saw this photo, I looked on Craigslist, and would you believe, I found THE EXACT SAME WINDOWS for sale!!! But I didn't have clearance from DH to build a project then, and it was days before Christmas that year, and I just couldn't take the time or the money to drive an hour and buy the windows. Of course, after Christmas when I looked for it, the ad was gone.

So I found regular rectangle vintage windows instead, and vintage French doors, and I even found a nice tulip design stained glass window that I will probably put in the interior room divider wall between the chicken side and the human side:



For the siding, I am going to try to recycle cedar siding from off our house. We had Hardie Plank siding put on last fall, and I asked the contractor if I could re use the old siding, and he said sure. What he didn't tell me was that trying to take the old siding off without ruining it would make the job a ton harder for the workers. Or that there would be an awful mess when they "stacked" it. They were supposed to just save the good pieces, and haul away the bad stuff, but it was so tedious sorting it, that they finally just dumped it all. Now I don't know if even any of it will still be usable:



The antique metal shingles on the BH&G inspiration photos would be impossible ($$$) to duplicate, so I am going to use galvanized steel metal roofing. Originally I wanted to recycle roofing material from an old barn. But I was told it would be full of nail holes, and my roof would be leaky. So instead, I bought new roof metal, and treated it with vinegar, so that the valleys will rust sooner, and give the illusion that it is aged. Here are my metal panels being treated:




And here are some before shots of the site. I staked out the corners and where the front door is to be located. And I got concrete builder's blocks and paving stone to help level the area.




My Narragansett turkey, Muffin checking out the future entrance:



It's going to be a lot bigger than the shed in the inspiration photo. 12' wide and 14' deep, with 8' side walls and the peak at about 16'. When I found out from the city that I could go as large as 200 square feet without needing a permit, then the scope of the project kept growing from my original idea of 10x12. I even almost went as large as 14x14, but I felt it would look better if it was not quite that wide in the front.

I have read that no one ever says they wished they had made their coop smaller, so even though I think 12x14 is overkill, I decided to just try to make is as large as the site where I want it will allow. My husband has his misgivings. He keeps saying, you sure you don't want to put it outside the fence, further back in the field? Well no. The idea is to make a beautiful thing in the yard that I can landscape around. Plus, I don't want to walk that far in the winter to take care of the chickens. And there's coyotes out in that field, too. (Although I already have plans to move my old chicken compound coops out there and continue to use them if I can make them predator proof enough. No sense letting my previous building efforts go to waste.)

 

[Finnie]

Wow. So it's been more than a year since I updated this project. I did paint the interior walls last spring. Then in my mind I had it all worked out what order I should do the rest of the projects required. (Nest boxes, window screens, pop door, poop boards etc.) But life happened and I got caught up in other things. (Got my first grandson in April that year!)

I still bought and hatched out chicks, though, and before I knew it, I needed to start using the Pinterest Shed to brood chicks. Which turned into half size chickens that needed roosts. So I threw up some makeshift roosts and made do, and time wore on and I kind of quit working on all the rest.

Well now it's spring again and I have yet more chicks that need space, and last year's birds really need their space improved. So I kicked my butt out of procrastination and "I'm afraid I can't do it" mode, and now I am on a mission to finish the interior on this thing. I need to work fast. Vacation is in 10 days, and I really want to have the improvements in place for the chicken-sitter.

Wednesday I drew up plans, Thursday I checked what wood we had laying around that I could use, Friday I bought the rest of the wood needed, Saturday I did most of the cutting, and today I painted the floors of the poop trays so they can dry while I finish the rest of the cutting.

Too busy to take pictures, but I'm waiting for paint to dry on one side so I can flip them over and do the other sides, so I thought I'd take a moment to snap one photo and post it.

Yesterday I had the mitre saw table set up near the tailgate of the van. (Was shady then.) Worked out pretty well to not even unload the wood. Just cut it, label the pieces, and set them back inside the van. In organized piles.

Time to get back to work. More painting, cutting, and assembling whatever parts I can. Then tomorrow I'll need to do a major coop clean-out and hope that I can get as far as installing their new roosts over new poop boards before it gets dark. Otherwise I'm going to have some pretty grumpy chickens when they can't find their usual places to sleep! Well, they will probably be grumpy about their nice new space any way, until they get used to it.

 

[Finnie]

We've been back a couple of weeks now. Our daughter and her family came to visit us the first week. Then it just so happened that we went to visit them that same weekend, the day after they left here. They live 3 hours away, in Evansville, IN. We don't get to see them all that often, so it was nice to see them twice in a row.

She plays roller derby, and it was their first bout of the season, so we wanted to go to it. It was also her first bout with that team. Before, she used to skate with the team up here in Indy. (Naptown Roller Girls) She quit doing that while she was pregnant, and then they moved away. Now the baby is a year old and she was missing the social aspect of being on a team, so she joined up with the Evansville team. (Demolition City Roller Derby) Our other daughter and her family also made the trip down for that, and we all stayed over for a Father's Day brunch the next day.

The next week I finally managed to get the brooder built under the east side poop boards. And finally was able to move more chicks that were outgrowing their cardboard brooder.

These doors were easier to hang, and they work a lot better than the west side doors. And I must admit, it was nice to have 3 inches extra space when I was squeezing in there installing the side panel. Every cloud has its silver lining.

Anyway, I'm very pleased with how the east side turned out. Nailed it!

(Sorry, couldn't resist that. )

I think the Pinterest Shed Coop is all set for the time being, and I will turn my attention back to the rooster coop and electric fence project that I put on hold a month or two ago. I have literally been letting the grass grow under that one. Tomorrow needs to be mowing day.

 

[Finnie]

Some(?) of it's here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...s-poop-pictures.621363/page-182#post-20051552

Are those 'frames' the brooder doors?
#kregenvy

Thank you for posting that link, Aart.
Those frames are actually the side walls and dividers for the brooders. They are going to be removeable.

Part of my lost post was about how I wanted that Kreg Jig for Mother's Day two years ago when @TerryH did his build, and showed how he made his window frames. My other son in law (I have two) bought it for me. But it has taken me until now to learn how to use it. It's pretty nifty!

I have also started drilling the pockets for the doors but didn't get photos of that yet. They will be double doors made from 1x2 instead of the furring strips I used for the dividers. I woke up this morning and thought about making chick access doors within the doors (that the hens can't fit through). So now I need to look at my scraps of 1x2 to see if I have big enough pieces for my idea. Basically make an H with the horizontal bar about 4" up from the bottom.

 

[aart]

I woke up this morning and thought about making chick access doors within the doors (that the hens can't fit through). So now I need to look at my scraps of 1x2 to see if I have big enough pieces for my idea. Basically make an H with the horizontal bar about 4" up from the bottom.

Make the doors adjustable, really, at least the width. Had a hen get thru a 4x4 opening. ..and had to tighten up the 2 side doors and screw a piece of wood the center one to make it narrower.

Looking good @Finnie ! I actually use the Porter Cable table top jig now. It's even nicer.

Geez, you have all the best toys tools!! Hey, Terry!

 

[Finnie]

I should explain this photo.

That cardboard is covering the hole in the wall where I intend/hope to build a bank of nest boxes, and be able to access them from the other side of that wall. (The "human" side of the coop. Which is now chock full of appliance box brooders and dog crate brooders.)

One of the reasons it has taken me two years to finish the interior of this project is because I felt it was important to build those nest boxes before the poop boards. It's going to be pretty hard to crawl under there now and do it. But I have a mental block about the nest box build. So I've been procrastinating it, and therefore procrastinating everything else that I think "shouldn't" be done before it. Well I just finally decided I really need to jump ahead on those other parts and to heck with the nests.

Tomorrow I intend to install the automatic pop door I bought, and now that the window screen frames are painted, put the hardware cloth on them and install them. I hope I can get all that done in one day, along with all the other stuff I have to do before our trip. Only two days left!!

 

[Finnie]

Well I did it! I got the east roosts and poop boards ready for them to sleep on before I left!

My success of the day- learning from my past mistake and making the frame for the brooder door plumb and square, instead of adhering to the not-straight wall.

My kicking-myself-for-being-stupid mistake of the day: Thinking I had made my poop board 3" shorter than I had planned, not double checking the poop board itself, and redesigning the brooder base 3" shorter. Spent quite a bit of time making that change, and then when I put the poop board on, what do you know. I had designed it right in the first place! Huge waste of time I could ill afford, and now I'm stuck with a brooder that is 3" shorter than it could have been.

Oh well. At least my mistake didn't ruin anything. If I would have looked at the already made poop board instead of going by my notes (I was looking at the west side notes. That poop board is shorter.) I would have seen that I wrote the length of the east side one right on it!

I will have to forgive myself for that and try not to let it bother me for the rest of my life. . At least I have 3 more inches of space to access that pop door. Which by the way is the Ador1.

Now for some photos of the screens and random west side brooder shots.

I found a prop for the window. Testing it out for a while before I buy a boatload of other ones for the rest of them.

"Human" side screens:

Oh the thumbnail is inside the brooder. I so wish I had had time to paint the walls first. It's going to ruin all my shots of chicks until I crawl in there and paint it some day.


Ok. Now I'm going to forget all about chickens and things and enjoy my vacation.

 

[Finnie]

Thank you!

Here is the progress from Friday.

Rafters are up.



Half the roof decking on:



Roof decking completed:



And an interior view

 

[Finnie]

You're welcome! And thank you!

Ha Ha, this one is designed to hold 20 chickens.

In the back half. It will have a front room for storage, and so that I can still truthfully call it my "garden shed".

 

[Finnie]

If you don't mind me asking, what is the ball park on the cost of this build?

did you keep track of the building material list? cost of labor?

I want to make one now almost finish with my 12 capacity coup,  just need to put on the roof and the nesting box mounted,.

It's sort of going to be a joint project, with the mini-barn company building the basic structure, and supplying the lumber for that, but also using roof metal, doors and windows that I bought myself before hand. And then after they are done with their part, I will take over and put the exterior siding on myself and finish out the interior myself.

So their estimate for their part of materials and labor is supposed to be around $5,000. And then I have been keeping track of all my other costs. So far I have spent just over $1100 on the doors, windows, roof metal, vinegar, etc... I just remembered I need to add $25 to the list that I gave to a friend of mine for driving me to Lowe's in her pickup truck to bring home the corrugated roof sheets.

So I imagine the costs will keep piling up as I build things like nest boxes, poop boards and roosts. I hope it will stay under 7k when all is said and done.

When I first started out with chickens, about a year and a half ago, I built what I was calling my "practice coop". I built that almost all by myself, kind of in a hurry. (Still took me 8 weeks.) But I knew that I would be wanting to do a more long term project that would be fancier, better designed, and hold more chickens. I'm excited that it's finally under way.

Here is a photo of my Practice Coop. I discovered from it that I can learn how to use power tools and build things that I didn't know I could do before. It was very empowering.