New plan! (LOTS O PICS, adding them as I go)

[AlabamaChickenLady]

Whysaywhat.... I sure hope you are feeling better!!

We are getting some snow, which is rare in Alabama! But I did manage to get over to Home Depot today and man oh man did I hit paydirt!! I was thinking of you and this post the whole time too!! I just had to let you know.

I only spent $14.24 total and I got:
8 pieces of 2" X 10" about 4 feet long for $0.51 each = $4.08
6 pieces of 2" X 8" about 4 feet long for $0.51 each = $3.06
4 pieces of 2" X 6" about 4 feet long for $0.51 each = $2.02
6 pieces of 2" X 4" about 4-5 feet long for $0.51 each = $3.06
2 pieces of 1/4" wooden sheeting of some sort at 3' X 4' squares for $1.01 each = $2.02

Man I cleaned up!! I could have gotten so much more, but I couldn't fit it all into my Jeep. Maybe next week I'll take the hubby's truck. But now I have enought material to build the steps to my coop and my hubby now has enough material to build the stand he's been wanting to put his 55 gallon fish tank on. I love Home Depot now... its my favorite store.

Ohhh, I also wanted to let you know that you can get a 10% discount on stuff at Lowes or Home Depot if you are a military vet. My husband is a vet and we get the discount when ever a big project comes up.

 

[abChicken]

congrats good find

we had dusting of snow last nite none on driveway

Will this winter never end!!!

 

[WhySayWhat]

That is an awesome find! I found two 3/4 sheets of OSB in Central OR, if I could have fit them into the little rental car, I would have bought them!

Be careful on the sheeting you got though, if it looks like pressed sawdust, it can't go outside! That's what I mistakingly got and am now using on the cathouse inside...it soaks up water like a sponge.

I'm still in the throes of this head cold, it seems to be getting worse instead of better.

But, the weather isn't cooperating either...so I guess I don't mind being down for the count for a few more days, lol.

Only 34 days until my chicks arrive!

 

[MareeZoCool]

I thought I was doing great finding 3 sheets of3/4" outdoor grade plywood for $45.00. Then my husband came home with 4x4's treated posts from pallets he found free! My Brother-in-law and hubby spent 4.5 hours, and a 12-pack assembling a fine 4'x4' coop. Painting was left for my great pleasure! I still have not decorated the exterior. That's a Spring project!

 

[TigerLilly]

Wow! I need to do some serious searching for free items so I can get my coop/barn started!

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
Keep checking Craigslist for free items (pallets, lumber, etc.) If you have a local FreeCycle group, check that as well. I get a lot of free pallets from glass companies. You would be surprised at what you can find for free. I had a peacock aviary built (measurements are 28 feet long - 10 feet wide - 8 feet tall) from Free pallets.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=439437

Free is always the way to go.

 

[THINGUM]

I'm 30 miles east of WhySayWhat, and probably only a 100 feet higher. The snow is finally gone but the ground is still frozen solid, so there is no hope for any sort of foundation (step #1 with any structure) and so I'm twiddling my thumbs. You'll find fasteners cheaper at "Fastners" than H/D and you can buy them by the handfull, if you need less than a box.

Build her hell for stout, "pretty" always takes care of herself -- Charlie Sedlemeyer

 

[WhySayWhat]

Yeah...between the weather (we're supposed to be getting 50+ mph winds tonight) and this darned cold, I haven't gotten anything done this week! I am feeling 80% human again though, so hopefully I can start getting a few pieces put together in the next few days! My boyfriend keeps asking me if I have enough time to get the coop built before the gals will need it. I keep telling him "yes, they won;t be here for 32(!) days and then they won't need the coop for about 8 weeks after that." But, I'm a little leary of my calculations on that, lol. Not only that, but I have decided to take a basketweaving course through the community college here ($49 for anyone in the Spokane area, it runs every wednesday in March from 1-4pm at the Hillyard Senior Center, plenty if room left!) and I'll get a new skill, maybe a friend or two, and 3 handmade baskets out of it!

Yep, it's got to be cabin fever, lol. I also got to thinking that maybe my 3" screws are a bit too long for all the screwing I need, so I may have to go buy some shorter ones, but I won't do that until the SO's at work, lol. I'm feeling so good this afternoon, I'm gonna go change into "grubbies" and see about flipping the pallet crates over onto the big blue pallets. I may not be able to work on the piers and 4x4's today...but I can maybe get the shell started!

Pics to come when I get something done, lol.

 

[WhySayWhat]

I worked myself sweaty!

Pardon the messy garage too! We use it primarily for storage since our vehicles are too wide/long to fit in it!

But, I have pictures to share! Nothing is screwed together yet, though. I want to be able to put it together in the "final" spot, because the pallets are almost too heavy for me to move alone, let alone with them stacked together and twice as wide!

The one on the left is a big blue pallet (spacers are 4x4 pieces) on the bottom with a pallet crate flipped upside down so that it's base becomes the top of the coop. The long pieces on top of it are the 4x4x8 p/t runners the whole structure will eventually sit on (they will be placed in the concrete piers with "floating" anchors). I forgot about the cross braces when I was drawing up my design (I'll share those when I'm all done

), I'm not too sure how to go about using them...at least not the 2 that will cross each other in a big X in the center of the coop!

Here's another view of the half I have setup. I still need to put the sub-flooring down on the blue pallet, along with the laminate tiles I have leftover from redoing the floor in the master bathroom. I'm toying with the idea of attaching pieces of 2x4 to the blue pallet so that when I'm ready to put it togther, I can just slide the crates into their "slots" and add a few screws. I have 7 pieces of 2x4 that I don't think I need to use other than one for a roost (several of them already have the edges rounded off!), leaving 6 at minimum...1 on each short (outer) side and 2 on each of the long sides...that might work out just perfect!

I left the "top" pieces of wood on the crate on two sides ( the bottom of the coop walls), the other crate already had them removed, I plan on those 2 sides to be mostly solid walls with windows at the top at most, so they should help add a bit more sturdiness to the whole thing.

As for the final roof...I'm toying with a few ideas. I could "panel" it on top and wrap the sides of the upper pallet in hardware cloth (for ventilation) or I might be able to just cover the whole thing in hardware cloth. My concern with the second option is that it would be way too drafty in winter. I could also make the paneled to premovable with hardware cloth underneath, but I'd like to use as much of the hardware cloth for the run and not have to buy more, that ate a huge portion of my coop/run budget! I just noticed you can see a couple of the panels we took down in the first picture that are going to end their lives as coop walls.

If you look really carefully at the left side, there's a white panel (from the room built into our garage) and a wood grain one on the right that came out of our laundry room (the previous owners had enclosed the furnace & water heater, we had to take them down to have them serviced!).

 

[WhySayWhat]

Quote:
I don't know how well you can see it, but in the picture of my back deck that I posted earlier, there's a swing.

This one:

I'm kind of hopping to get it situated so I can sit in a semi-shady spot during the summer and watch the chicken antics! Otherwise, I have a concrete garden bench (18"x3-4'x2' tall) that I plan on putting in the run for a human hangout spot. Right now it is in pieces in my shed.

I really need to get a new pic of the back deck now that all that wood is gone! I've moved my door plans ro the space to the far left of the supports on the front facing long side. The other spots are just too skinny for me to fit through! I have so many things that need repairing this spring before things can be planted and/or built! The little white planters up on the deck need to be re-secured to the deck (some of the screws fell out last summer thanks to the rotten squirrels digging around in them), that swing needs to have everything tightened (it came with the house and it was in disrepair then), the concrete bench needs to be drug out and put together (not neccessarily before building), the small pile of Sumac wood needs to be moved, ground under the deck needs leveling, coop needs to go in (as well as get built), hardware cloth needs to go up! And, if the sounds I heard outside tonight are indicative of what the yard will look like in the morning...I bet I have a Sumac or two that will need to be cut up and hauled to behind the shed until we can get it loaded in the pickup and taken to the dump! If it wasn't a sumac, one of our oak/maple (I forget which they are) lost some big branches...I still have power so I guess it wasn't the neighbor's leaning pine or the Poplars in her back corner!

They're calling for a high around 49 tommorow! Sounds like a good day for me to try and get those piers leveled out! Woot!