Our little chicken coop in Progress!

[twfernandez]

Hello again guys! Wrapped up a little early today because of the rain, and looks like its going to rain again all day tomorrow. :-/ But, the good news is that I was able to get quite a bit done leading up to the weekend, and I will be putting in a full day tomorrow(in my rain gear) - so progress is being made!



Rafters and perlins are all cut and hung!



As I mentioned, when planning the roof, I was able to find plenty of pictures online, but most of them showed only the completed roof, or the angle wouldn't show me the detail I was looking for, so I've included multiple shots and angles of the roof in case anyone wants to see how we did our roof. (Full disclosure: I've never built a lean-to style roof before. Also, I don't know how to spell perlins .. purlins??)
Throughout this build, most of the lumber we've been using has been nice and straight - however we had managed to pile up quite a few 16 foot 2x4's that were warped/skewed pretty noticeably - I was able to put these to work for the perlins, since the warp/skew didn't affect the structure when attached on the "flat" side of the 2x4 - and since it's only visible from inside of the run, it also doesn't affect the look of the coop overall. I figured this was better than letting perfectly solid lumber(albeit, a little crooked) go to waste.

Another angle, this shows the "back" of the run - I'm not using any eave trim for the rear, only a slight overhang of the metal roofing, this way the water will drain better - for this reason, and also because it's on the back, and therefore not as visible, I didn't run a facing/trim board across the rafters.



Here is the "front" of the coop with the facing/trim boards hung across the front of the rafters. I've given us a two foot awning on the front side, and a one foot awning off of the rear - this should help keep the area around the run from getting too muddy.
As you can see, I did get some painting done which is great! (I want to paint everything I can now, before hanging hardware cloth/siding.)



This is just a closer shot of the front awning - did I mention that I've never built a lean-to style roof before? Looking at this picture, I've created quite the lumber sandwich - the recipe is included for anyone who would like it!

<recipe>

To make a lumber sandwich, you will need:

Lumber
Fasteners (nails or screws, whichever you prefer)
Gumption

Combine ingredients as follows, starting from the lowest horizontal board you can see:

The bottom 2x4 is attached between the 4x4 posts, hung sideways - this is to attach the hardware cloth too.
Immediately above that is another 2x4, hung flat, that attaches the 4x4's to each other.
On top of that is a 2x6, hung sideways. That's the one that the rafters are resting on - 2x6 to give me the pitch I wanted on the roof. The rafters sit directly on this and are attached to the rear of this board by metal joists.
Next, on top of the 2x6, between each rafter, is another 2x4 hung sideways. This is to fill the gap between the 2x6 and the roof - I had thought about cutting and hanging hardware cloth over that opening, but the 2x4's were much faster to get up there.
Finally, you've got the perlin(which is just a 2x4 hung flat) that runs all the across the rafters.

</recipe>

Here you can see the latest addition to the hen-house, with the roof framing completed. What isn't painted in this shot will be covered by siding/trim - hopefully in the next week.
At the top of the hen-house, where the awning meets the frame, there is a 1 1/2" gap between the perlin(painted white) and the frame as well as a similar 3 1/2" gap along the top of the rear wall - these is going to remain permanently open for ventilation
That's all of the pictures I have for now - today, we were able to finish hanging the interior walls and roof, as well as get the rest of the interior chicken wire up over the window and the front/rear roof "vents"
While there is still much to be done, I am enthusiastic about the progress. I expect rain all day tomorrow, but I can concentrate on the inside of the hen-house, which has a passable "roof" now(finish wiring for the lighting, cut and hang roosts, poop-boards and nest-box "perch/step").
Next week, the weather looks great, so I should be able to get a lot done. I have all of the roofing material now, so my plan for next week(tentatively) is to finish painting the run and the rafter work, then hang the steel roof.
Once that is finished all I have left is ... well .. a lot, really.

But - I am optimistic, and will post updates as soon as I am able!

Thank you,
T&S

 

[tbatz11]

Wow that's a lot of work done!! Do you do most of it yourself or does Sue help out?

We got the lid for our nest box done as well as put up the roof boards and tar paper. Shingles go on tomorrow.

I can't wait to see this coop done! Have you decided on an exterior color? My trim and run will be white, the coop red, and the roof green =)

 

[drumstick diva]

Looking good - you must have some carpentry background? How do you do all that stuff?

 

[whitney556]

You are going to have some spoiled chickens for sure!

 

[twfernandez]

Hello everyone!

Our thanks for the kind words and encouragement!

Quote:
@whitney556 , we figure, if you're going to have chickens, you may as well have spoiled chickens!

Quote:
@drumstick diva - Thank you! I've had plenty of practice over the years doing different projects for home and work, but no carpentry background specifically - just patience, determination, and a lot of good luck!

Quote:
@tbatz11 - We are subscribed to your build thread, and your coop looks stellar. I giggle a lot while building because your husband is a precision builder, whereas I just bend and twist and hammer things until they fit! But your coop looks great, and the colors you chose are classics! We have decided on an our exterior colors - Yellow for the hen-house, white trim and roofing.

<long story>

We just moved into this house last year in August. A big part of the move was renovating the house on the property - it was in pretty bad shape. I had to replace almost all of the subfloor from water damage, needed new plumbing, new electric - anyway; we gutted the house and now it's very nice.
As a part of the renovation, we needed to paint the exterior. We were going for brick red with a light brown trim... Picked the colors from color cards at Home Depot and had five gallons of light brown mixed to do all of the trim work.
When we opened the can, we thought the color looked a little bright, but figured it would darken up when the paint dried.
Suffice it to say, what we thought we purchased(light brown) and what we actually had were quite different, and the trim came out yellow .. I mean, seriously yellow. So, about half way through painting, we realized the house was literally the same color as the Washington Red Skins jersey, and it was starting to look like a hot-dog. :-/
So, we changed gears and went with brick red and grey trim. It looks much better that way.

But we couldn't return the yellow paint to the store since it was a custom color - so I have 4 1/2 gallons of allegedly light-brown but actually yellow paint leftover - and this was how we decided on the color.

</long story>

Again, our thanks for following along with the build - you guys don't know how uplifting it has been to share this experience with you! Thank you thank you!

T&S

 

[twfernandez]

Almost forgot .. @tbatz11, Sue helps me out a ton - our work schedules don't allow us to work together on the build that frequently, but when we are able to work together she's a terrific helper/builder/carpenter/cheerleader/supervisor! Truly, I am the luckiest guy!

Also, I wanted to update on our progress with pictures of the build:




Insulation going in - I purchased R30 attic insulation, which is super thick, so we're able to pack in quite a bit, even in the little spaces.

In the second photo, you can see the interior ceiling in place. The two openings are for the rear door, approximately 3ft wide by 4 ft tall - this should make it fairly easy to get in and clean up.
I have a bunch of vinyl flooring left over from renovating the house, so I'm going to lay flooring on the interior and going up the wall(maybe 16"?) - the laminate is really nice, durable, and I will be able to hose the whole thing out for deep-cleanings once in a while.
The flooring is a light-brown wood grain, and we're going to paint the interior in a cream/tan color that I had an extra gallon of - not quite the same yellow as the exterior, but the colors should coordinate well.
Still not 100% on the interior design, but we're strongly leaning towards this layout:


Our thanks and credit for the 3D and the layout from @skylavaulter !

Here, we have finished(ish) hanging the siding on the north wall. The openings under the windows are for the nest boxes - I forgot to cut the opening in the "middle" of the two windows - so I'll do that this week - but in the end, the nest box will be one continuous piece centered on the wall.
The opening next to the outlet box is for a storage area - the storage runs all the way back(10') so we can stow rakes/long handled tools underneath.
The opening on the far right will be a hinged door into the run area under the hen-house - I plan to segregate the run area under the hen-house as our chicken jail.
We will be able to open this from outside of the run and use the area for quarantine/jail/integrating new chickens - I will build a small chicken-door inside the run so that I can put the new chicks in from outside, let them get to know the other girls, then eventually release them into the main run.



A shot of the north wall from the interior - you can see the opening that I forgot to cut between the two windows.

The weather is supposed to be really nice all week - I won't be able to do any work on the coop again until probably Thursday, but we made a lot of progress this past weekend, and I'm starting to think the girls might be able to move in in the next 7 - 10 days(fingers crossed!)
Will update again as soon as I am able!

Thanks all,
T&S

 

[WindyHillFarm]

This is a really nice design! Did you come up with it yourself or find plans somewhere? Really like the built-in storage space underneath.

 

[twfernandez]

@WindyHillFarm , thank you! We were originally inspired by the coop pictured in this thread:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/963403/does-anyone-know-whos-coop-this-is

From what I understand, the hen-house in that thread is called the "Daisy," and you can purchase plans for it online. That said, at this point, we have taken plenty of liberties with the design, adding the storage underneath, changing the size/shape, ventilation, etc., and we have received a lot of feedback and ideas from the folks here at BYC - so I don't think the plans would line up at all, but still like to give credit where credit is due, and the Daisy coop pictured above certainly started our journey!

Thanks,
T&S

 

[WindyHillFarm]

Thanks for the info! I can't wait to see it all painted. The color scheme sounds amazing.

 

[tbatz11]

That looks incredible! I like that you used just siding on the outside instead of sheeting + siding. I wish we had done a little more looking into what the local hardware store had available before we put up the sheeting. Because when I went to buy the siding just about everything was thick and heavy, and at that point we didn't want to take down the sheeting after all the work we put in. The siding I bought isn't the prettiest but it's 1/4" thick and the thinnest i could find.