I,ve a small and simple little chicken coop which I painted last week and one of the girls manage to get in as have paint on he tail feathers. It,s all right all gone now. Very easy to clean the whole floor come,s out clean it and hose it down if needed and that's it. I clean the coop and hutch the same day and that's once a week so it makes it easy
You should look into one of those hammers with a magnetic nail holder, you can just place the nail there, and drive it in on the first blow deep enough to stick, and after that two or three taps pushes it all the way in. Great for those hard to reach spots or when framing, although when paneling, it isn't as easy to get the spacing to look good between nails. And if you have issues with nails splitting the wood, you should tap the pointy end of the nail once to dull it out, that way it will crush it's way through instead of cleaving. But I have to say, even though you might need to whack a couple of nails with the hammer due to inconsistencies in the wood, when doing larger walls those nail guns sure are a godsend. Much nicer than doing the "hit hit OWWW" every five nailsAir nailers are faster but I've noticed that faster sometimes means sloppier. The professionals that redid the house didn't always notice when they just missed the stud (and hand nailing you WILL know if you just caught the edge and went out the side), sometimes the nails don't go all the way in so you have to whack them with a hammer anyway (or not notice and leave it to the homeowner).
I've often said I hit the nail on the head more often than a professional carpenter. Of course that is because *I* HAVE to hit EACH nail more often to drive it in. No "tap, BAM, BAM, BAM and done" with me doing the nailing. No, it is more "tap .. tap.. hit .. hit OK, probably in solidly enough to take my hand off and hit it hard. HIT HIT OOPs, caught the corner, bend it back straight, HIT HIT"
I agree with Bruce. Flipping the door inside out would already provide a lot more stability to the door, otherwise it will start drooping. Or you could just flip the angle brace. My visual sense of engineering stability is slightly offended as wellCoop looks nice but from an engineering POV, the angle brace on the door is backward. You want to carry the load from the top latch side back down to the lower hinge. And typically, you would want the horizontal boards higher and lower, under the hinges so they are carrying the load across all the vertical boards, not on a single vertical board. There is going to be a lot of stress on that board and it will likely tear away from the horizontal boards over time. Also, you wouldn't want that much "floppy" unsupported wood above and below the horizontals. Unless, of course, this is just for show and there are horizontal boards under the hinges and a proper direction angle brace on the inside. In that case you have to change it anyway because it offends my visual sense of engineering stability
. I just lost 6 of 9 of my young chickens that I had raised from keets because I didn't have them in a secure coop/run. [/SIZE]
Air nailers are faster but I've noticed that faster sometimes means sloppier. The professionals that redid the house didn't always notice when they just missed the stud (and hand nailing you WILL know if you just caught the edge and went out the side), sometimes the nails don't go all the way in so you have to whack them with a hammer anyway (or not notice and leave it to the homeowner).
I've often said I hit the nail on the head more often than a professional carpenter. Of course that is because *I* HAVE to hit EACH nail more often to drive it in. No "tap, BAM, BAM, BAM and done" with me doing the nailing. No, it is more "tap .. tap.. hit .. hit OK, probably in solidly enough to take my hand off and hit it hard. HIT HIT OOPs, caught the corner, bend it back straight, HIT HIT"
