Need help with designing plans

[songbird]

Hi everyone!
I have been researching and researching and researching coop designs, plans, etc, and haven't found ANYTHING I like that will look appropriate in our yard. Finally I gave up and started drawing what I want the chicken house to look like....but I am by no means an architect or a builder! Does anyone have an idea how I can get my ideas turned into actual plans so that someone could actually build my coop? I'm running out of time!

 

[Judy]

There is a huge array of ideas here in the coop design & construction section, everything from expensive itty bitty cute things, to ideas for huge converted old buildings, and large coops built from reclaimed stuff like pallets or reclaimed or culled lumber. Plus plenty of coops built with new lumber. Click on index, then coop design.

It would help if you had included some operating factors, like number of chickens, your climate, your financial considerations, etc. People here want to help, but need some basic info.

 

[patandchickens]

Basically, any chicken coop is a box. It can have different styles of roof, different proportions to the sides of the box, and different amount of decorative whatsits slapped on (or not slapped on), but it remains a box.

So your best bet is to reduce your 'dream coop' back to its essential box, in your mind, and then find plans for a shed that has those general dimensions and that style of roof. All else can be added as decoration rather easily.

If you do this, you can build it yourself if you want or find someone to pay to do it for you, or you might even find that you can buy a generic-looking premade shed and tart it up yourselves to look the way you want.

You *can* hire someone to take your sketch and turn it into measured engineered plans for someone else to do, like hiring an architect for a house, but you REALLY don't wanna shell out for that for a coop. If you have to have someone build something from scratch for you, any professional will be able to look at your sketch and build something sort of like it... although, warning, it WILL NOT be exactly exactly precisely precisely the same.

If you could post a sketch of what you hvae in mind, we could probably help

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[acheeknmanbestfren]

I would suggest buying some graph paper and doing a clean, scaled drawing of what you want - including measurements and details for any special features you want.

Any decent "builder" would be able to use that drawing to create your masterpiece.

 

[songbird]

Thanks for your input, and sorry I left out details. We'll have about 10 hens, mostly standard but a couple of bantams, and I hope to give them quite a bit of outside time, either in a run, or free range while we are out with them. Our horse/sheep barn is a carriage-house style, so I'd like the coop to look something like a mini version of the barn. We are in New England, so winters are cold. Does that help?