Sounds like you're coming along with your coop! Remember that if the nestboxes are so close to the slanted roofline and the roosting bars are lower than the nestboxes your chickens will roost in the boxes instead of on the bar. For protection from rain or hot sun we have a pop-up canopy over our little coop. I hate standing in rain to collect eggs or to chance getting the nestbox bedding damp. We bury the canopy legs into the ground about a foot to keep it from para-sailing in a breeze. We replace the cover once a year with a new tarp using ball-ties because regular replacement canopy covers are too expensive for our budget. For water we bought EGLU feeders (they hook inside the largest EGLU plastic coop). We hook it in our small coop for water so the chickens can't stand in it - we had a Leghorn that used to love standing in the drinking water and getting it all dirty. My wish list is to have a nifty little nipple waterer that attaches to a Rubbermaid jug but it's not cheap - about $70.I'm glad to hear that... The new coop we are building this weekend will, like yours, have an open front covered with hardware cloth but we will make a panel that can be added or removed for weather purposes. Due to VERY rainy weather here we will also have a 6-8 foot overhang. The open front was why we were thinking of adding the heat lamp.... Now I'm thinking we will stick with the front cloth but just add extra flat roosts to allow room to completely cover their feet at night...
Now... The other hurdle.....
........ Bedding.... We've been using pine shavings but the dust build up, low absorption, slow composting rate and constant cost of replacing it every week, I'm thinking of using granulated sweet PDZ.
........ Nesting boxes.... I want slanted, covered boxes low to the floor but my husband wants to set them close to the top of the coop with hop bars allowing the natural slant of the roof to act as the top keeping birds from roosting above them.
....... Feed/water troths.... Covered troths or hanging feeder/waterers?
Any suggestions?