UPDATE: Pics URL on post #24: Journal of a newbie coop builder

[Whitewater]

Thought it might be fun for me to keep a journal through this process, and fun for other people to read it. Also, it might help other newbies to read my process from start to finish!

First off, the facts:

Area: Densely urban

Acreage: .13 (total, for house and yard)

Other Outdoor Pets: None, but our 2 Standard Poodles do spend a lot of time outside in good weather

# of Birds: Three.

Type of Chicken: Black Australorp Hens (who will inhabit the coop when they are 15 or 16 weeks old). No roosters, the city prohibits them.

Building Experience: Me -- very little, 15 years of set building for the stage has taught me how to build in TWO dimensions only. I am learning as we go! Hubby -- hasn't built anything in a LONG time and never anything this complicated. Luckily, his brother (a professional carpenter) has already volunteered to help us with the difficult bits.

Coop Info: Going to be a 6'6" square, pretty much, with a 6'x3' henhouse with 2 interior nest boxes. Given the behavior of the adult hens we saw on our farm visit, we think 2 boxes for 3 hens will cut down on the loud, irritated squawking when a line forms for egg laying. Our yard is small and at the most, can only reasonably handle 4 standard sized hens, so we started with 3 (also, that makes the city permit process easier). We are using a pretty heavily modified version of the Garden Coop's plans.


Well, when last we met our heroine (me), I hadn't started to build anything and was still in the research-and-fact gathering stage, asking questions about cost and hardware cloth and so on. In the intervening time I have managed to acquire and cut most of the lumber for the exterior frame (found via Craigslist for a steal, and using FIL's circular saw), give most of the cut lumber its first coat of stain, and (with the help of Hubby) have put the front wall frame of the coop together. The cinder blocks are also in their actual places out in our yard. Hubby and I will continue to put together walls over the next few days. I hope to have at least the 4 exterior walls framed by the 15th. Our birds will need to be picked up by the end of June, so I am feeling a bit of a time crunch.

So far, the most time consuming process has been the staining. We are doing all of the work in our garage and we aren't set up like a professional shop, so getting the stain on, then waiting for it to dry,then putting on the second coat, etc, is taking FOREVER.

I reminded Hubby that we can't actually put the frame together in the garage.

When that happy day comes, I am hoping we'll have extra hands (and extra drills!) to make it easier.

I now have almost all of the materials we need. We have some OSB up in our garage rafters, courtesy of the people who used to live in our house, but we don't have a tall enough ladder, so we have to get a friend over to help us out who *does* have a ladder. Anyway, it's not enough for the whole coop, but about half of it, probably. Also in the rafters still are the 2'x8' boards we need for the roof of the coop.

Today I went to the Habitat for Humanity ReHome store and to my surprise found both a lovely wooden screen door ($10) that's an astonishingly perfect coop/run door, and a nice high-end 6'x5' vinyl remnant that's the perfect size for the floor of the coop (and the walls behind the roost!). The vinyl has some padding on the bottom, which will help insulate the floor a bit and hopefully keep our hens a bit warmer this winter.

So far, the cost of our coop is:

~$60 for 33 pieces of 2'x4'x8' untreated pine lumber (Craigslist)
~$50 (including shipping, which was about as much as the stuff itself!) for 2 100' rolls of 12" hardware cloth. Yeah, I know. The plan is to snug it tight to each other using fasteners. Might make the coop look wierd, but hey, they're chickens. This isn't the Taj Mahal. Found on Ebay.
~$10 for a beautiful run door. Now, we don't have to build one ourselves! (Habitat for Humanity ReHome Store)
~$12 for vinyl for the interior coop floor (and sides, if there's enough). ("" "" "" "" )
$12 for a quart of Minnwax PolyColor stain (Home Depot) -- we will probably need 2 more of these before everything's done.
$7.50 for a 1lb box of galvanized exterior wood screws (again, probably 1 or two more before everything's over) (Home Depot)
$1.50 for door hinges (used, Habitat for Humanity ReStore)
6 Free Cinder Blocks for the foundation (Craigslist)
Free 1/4" plywood (from our garage, dunno how much, 1 sheet, looks like 7'x3' or thereabouts)
Free 3/4" OSB from our garage, two sheets that look like 7'x2', approximately)
3 free 2'x8'x8' treated boards from our garage, perfect for roof supports
$20 for approx. 130 board feet of reclaimed cedar siding (Craigslist) see below!
$20 for 1 4x8 and 1 2x8 3/4 plywood with oak veneer (Craigslist) see below!
oh, and a .25 cent door pull from the ReHome store.

We know we will have to spend another $60 on Sun Tuf corrugated poly for the roof . . . can't go with the plain ol' plastic because of our heavy snow load here in MN, not to mention wind, and severe hail, among other issues. Hail will go right through the regular corrugated plastic.

I'm also budgeting another $50 for stuff like caulk and more screws and so on. The ReHome Store has a ton of caulk for amazingly cheap prices, that will help.

So, total of what we've already spent is: $193.25

The estimated real total (including the Sun Tuf and the hardware etc) winds up being: $303.25 -- not bad, all things considered, although we're saving a ton of money by looking for good used stuff and going to the ReHome store and Craigslist and so on whenever possible instead of just going and buying it new at Home Depot.


(LOL, I forgot I never published this post! Hee Hee!)

After I sent this post in, or so I assumed, I went on Craigslist last night and lo, I found a bunch of reclaimed cedar from somebody's basement . . . sounds like a lot of it -- nine 7' pieces, twenty 2'5" pieces, 1 8' board and some 4' misc pieces, all 9.5" wide by 1" thick -- for a mere $20. They have that groove in them too, so yay for siding. I don't know if it will be enough for everything (If I've done the math correctly it should *just barely* be enough -- anybody care to comment?) but this will definitely get us more towards our goal than I was last night! Also (on Craigslist, of course!) found 2 sheets of 3/4" plywood, one 4x8 and 1 2x8, both with an oak veneer on both sides, for $20. Going to get all of this wood tonight. Am a little worried about the 4x8 sheet fitting in my vehicle (I have an older Honda CRV), I know it will fit lengthwise but will the width fit with me driving? I guess we'll find out. Or stick it out the windows, or something. The 2x8 won't be an issue. (wonder if we could stick the 4x8 vertically along the passenger side . . . )

Tonight the plan is threefold: 1) Hubby (because he will get home from work tonight earlier than I will) is going to beard the last few neighbors in their dens and see if we can't get them to sign our permission slips -- including the passive aggressive Eastern Neighbor I talked about in my Laws and Ordinances thread -- 2) Going to get the wood I found on CL, and 3) putting together another wall frame.

Hubby is finally beginning to feel the urgency here because for him, money always talks loudly and I don't think the whole chicken concept was really real to him until we went to the farm that has our teenagers and A) got to hold one of the chicks and B) put down a deposit that was about half their total value

Granted, it was only $20, but for him, spending $$ means that he's going to exert himself to make sure we get our permit!

I would really like to get ALL the framing done for the exterior walls this week, but this weekend is going to mostly be spent doing Mother's Day activities, so I don't know how much I'm going to get done, realistically speaking. Framing is a 2 person job (at least, around here it is!) and I don't know whether, after a day spent with the fam, whether Hubby is going to want to do some construction.

I'm starting to get worried because we only have 6 weeks left to finish our coop (not to mention having to have time to go and get feeders and pine shavings and so on . . . ). And we still have to put together the wall frames, stain them, dig the cinder blocks level for a foundation, put it all together, make the henhouse and the nest boxes, do the roof, put the siding on, hang the door, do the hardware cloth, stain the exterior walls, and bolt the chain to the bottom of the henhouse for the feeder, not to mention incidentals like getting the pine shavings down, finding branches for outdoor roosts, and buying pavers to set the waterer on.

It's a lot of work! I'm sure we'll have it finished in time, though. Since the only materials that are really outstanding now are the Sun Tuf panels (and if we need more plywood), it's more about buckling down and getting it done.

That is, getting it done in-between work and gardening!

More updates as the work progresses, and pictures if we can do so without violating our contract with The Garden Coop, who've asked people not to post detailed construction pictures (from their plans) online.


Whitewater

 

[write2caroline]

I too had never built anything in my life from plans and I did this

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You will do fine!

Caroline

 

[Whitewater]

Well, I'm sure we'll get it done. It might not look nice, but it will do its job, which is the most important part, of course!

Tonight Hubby and I went to pick up the used cedar siding, and holy goodness, there's a ton of it. Quite a bit more than they said in the CL ad, but they still only wanted $20 for the lot. I felt a little guilty about that, they could easily have gotten $50 for the wood (yep, there was THAT much of it), but they were happy, so I guess I'm happy too. They helped us load, and even cut a 12' board in half when it was clear that it wouldn't fit in my car in one piece. Considering that we need many 6' pieces, this isn't a bad thing at all! The siding is nice, quite dry and free of mold, and 90% of it is tongue and groove, which will make life a lot easier. And it's painted on one side, which means that when we put the painted side to the wall and put the unfinished side out, the paint will help as a moisture barrier, though of course we're going to paint the OSB also.

And we discovered that a 4'x8' piece of truly lovely plywood (it's going to get used as the hen house front and back walls, it's so thick and heavy that it will provide lots of nice insulation all by itself! The oak veneer is wonderful, I kind of want to use it for something other than a hen house! It's that great!) won't fit in my car, alas. The 2'x8' of the same stuff will, however, and we're going to use that to make the next boxes -- the plans call for the boxes to be 26" high, but we figure the hens won't miss the extra 2", so they'll be 24" high at the back, sloping down to 18", and 12" wide, which I hope will be enough room.

Luckily, the gent who was selling the plywood decided to take pity on us and is willing to cut the 4x8 into 3 pieces, 2 3'x4' for the front and back walls, and one leftover 2'x4' bit, which we're not sure what to do with yet. We're going to go get it tomorrow after work, thankfully the seller doesn't live very far away! We've already paid him for the wood.

We're going to use the OSB we have in our garage, preliminary measurements, unfortunately, tell us that while it's bigger than 2' wide, it's probably not 3' wide, which is unhappy. We're just going to do the best we can and piece the OSB together with strips of the 1/4" thick plywood that was also in our garage, since that plywood is too thin to be used for anything else. Hey, whatever works! Anyhow, the OSB will become the floor and the two side walls, and we're going to cover that in linoleum anyhow (after painting it to keep moisture out), so it should all be ok. The linoleum will go up the sides of the coop as high as we can get, to make it easier to clean, and hopefully help with insulation in the wintertime.

I don't understand the Garden Coop's plans for the hen house walls. I get the whole floating interior wall concept, but what do you attach the exterior siding to? Maybe somebody who's built this coop previously can answer this question, because I've been scratching my head over it all night.

This is why we have a couple professional carpenters to help out!

Anyhow, tonight Hubby and I framed up the rear wall of the coop and I stained about half of it before it got too late to keep working. Tomorrow, the plan is to finish staining the rear wall, and frame up the two exterior side walls. After that, the only thing left to frame will be the actual hen house wall. Then we get to level the cinder blocks and start the fun of putting the siding on, and building nest boxes and getting into the interior of the hen house . . . .

I suspect that we may finish the whole coop/run in our yard, then get some hefty guys to help move it into its actual place (only a few feet, but still) when everything is done but the roof, because where it's supposed to go, there's no possible way to put hardware cloth around it, nor siding on the far left wall or the rear wall. The coop's spot is surrounded on two sides by a 4' chain link fence and on the 3rd side by my raspberry patch. And no, we can't change the spot, it's the best place by far to help keep the neighbor annoyance factor way down, the best place for the chickens to get sun even in winter, to avoid the spring floods and mud, and the best protection from wind and storms and so on.

I guess we'll just have to do everything in the yard . . . and completely stain/weather protect every bit of wood before we bring it outside.

I am fairly confident that we'll be able to get this done by the time we have to take our young chickens home at the end of June, which is good! LOL! I can't imagine what our chicken sellers would say if we didn't finish the coop until Halloween, or something silly like that.

And this weekend Hubby's new schedule at his second job takes effect, which means that we'll have all of Saturday to work on this together, instead of him coming home at 3pm and not being ready to work until 5pm, and the sun going down at 8pm. We've gotten a lot done in a short amount of time, but there's still a ton more to do, so having a whole day (plus two evenings per week) to get more stuff done is a true blessing. Of course, this weekend is Mother's Day, so we won't work *this* weekend, but next weekend . . . oh yes.

Tomorrow: more exterior wall framing, and more staining. And picking up the plywood for the nest boxes and walls, as well as borrowing a 6' ladder from a friend so that we can get the stuff down from out of our rafters.

(And I should start thinking about a place for a roost in the hen house. Unaccountably, the Garden Coop plans completely neglected to add that very important feature!)



Whitewater

 

[Whitewater]

(Duh, it would help if I added dates to all of this! Accordingly, the last two posts have been right about from May Day to tonight, the 5th of May)

LOL, ok, well, today we made a lot of newbie mistakes and wound up having to totally un-screw and re-screw the right exterior wall, taking it apart and putting it back together TWICE, so we decided that we were good with just that and went on our merry way. I know we wanted to get both exterior walls done tonight, but the SIL doesn't want us at her home until 5pm on Saturday, so Hubby suggested that we get some serious work done that afternoon, before we clean up and head to the mother's day celebration, which totally works for me. The plan is to get the left exterior wall done (and then the exterior frame will be complete, just have to finish staining and then take it out to the yard to actually put it together), get the interior hen house wall frame done, and to cut and put together the nest boxes. As of Saturday, the entire frame will be completed! We'll just have to start putting it together!

That means that tomorrow (6 May) and Friday, all I have to do is get another quart of stain for the frame and cut the lumber for the hen house frame. Totally do-able. I don't want to cut out the lumber for the nest boxes by myself (ye olde disability rearing its ugly head again!) because we really don't have a lot of that good plywood and I don't want to wind up wasting it. And of course, putting the final wall of the hen house together will require two people.

Next Wed, a week from today, I want to start -- and finish -- the front and rear walls of the chicken coop. The rear wall should be easy, the front wall has the egg door in it! That might be a bit tough. I've read and re-read the directions a dozen times and I still don't quite understand the whole 'door stop' business, though I get how to do the rest of it. Hence why I have help

And next Saturday I want to take all the walls outside to our back yard and put the frame together!

And I am building this coop even though neighbor permission is still tenuous. The basic problem is that nobody wants to stick their necks out . . . the constant refrain is "I support you having chickens, but I don't want to make the neighbors mad at me if I say yes". I don't know what else to tell folks . . . it's just not an issue, everybody except 1 household (worried about property values!) is in favor of this chicken thing. None of the neighbors are going to get mad, because they're all supportive! But nobody talks to each other around here, so nobody would know that. *sigh*

We will try the Min Pin Guy (familiar to those of you who are following my thread in the Laws section) again . . . we managed to talk to our Eastern neighbor, and *he* said (which made me laugh, not when we were talking to him, but later) that he didn't want Min Pin Guy mad at HIM. So Min Pin guy didn't fill out our form because he was afraid to tick off Eastern Guy, and Eastern Guy doesn't want to sign because he doesn't want to get Min Pin Guy angry. I just shake my head. The only thing to do now is to tell Min Pin Guy that Eastern Guy hasn't got a problem with it, and to ask for him to sign and return the slip, because Eastern Guy's only concern is how his neighbors will feel, and since Min Pin Guy is good with it all . . . well, hopefully we can show Eastern Guy Min Pin Guy's signature, and Eastern Guy will sign too.

People are so complicated. And I really don't understand why my neighbors would worry about what the neighbors would think when WE are the ones having the chickens. It's not like the rest of the neighborhood is going to come after *them* if they don't like something . . . . I dunno.

Anyhow, we aren't slated to pick the chickens up until the end of June, so things will work out by then, I hope. Certainly the coop construction seems to be going well, but that's because we're doing the easy stuff, things I've done before and know how to do. I suspect the build will get slower and more complicated after we finish the frame, but hey, I'm always up for learning a new thing.

Oh, I forgot, I also went and picked up one Sun Tuf panel and its spacer kit today, because I've got some extra money right now. Panel was $19, spacer kit was $5 and a bit. We're going to have to cut it down, the coop is only 6' or thereabouts, the wood we have for the rafters is 7' long, but the Sun Tuf is 8' long . . . . here's hoping a circular saw can cut through Sun Tuf!

(And I also got a Mr. Stripey heirloom tomato and a pot for mint and borrowed a friend's 6' aluminum ladder . . . I was a busy bee!)


And given the materials we have to work with, our coop really isn't going to resemble the Garden Coop very much. Some stuff will be shorter than their plans, some stuff is different, we lopped off the right hand third of their enclosed run . . . we're using a different door, etc etc. Things are different. Probably very different. I don't think it's going to look like the coops on the Garden Coop's website, that's for sure! Not that being different is bad, but it's definitely not going to be the same. Quite frankly, all I care about is making sure it's structurally sound (won't blow away or fall apart the first time it rains) and isn't going to have people saying that our coop is an eyesore.

No building tomorrow, I need a break. Think I'll go to the gym after work.


Whitewater

 

[Whitewater]

6 May 2010

Tonight I admit, I didn't do any work on the coop at all. I was feeling irritable and out of sorts all day and our neighbor's backing out of her promise and the others being so passive-aggressive made me lose hope. Quite frankly, I said to myself, 'why bother? We're never going to actually be able to keep chickens . . . so why build them a coop?'

I am trying to pull myself out of this funk because nothing is set in stone yet. I keep reminding myself that the neighbors, while refusing to commit, are also generally supportive and have not (with one exception) flat out refused to sign our form. It's just going to take a bit more of talking to them and trying to get them to put something down on record. I suspect we will find out how much talent for selling I/we have!

Dealing with people is not my strong suit, however!!! But I really mustn't let myself get down, true, this is a setback, but it's hardly an obstacle that can't be overcome.

Anyhow, I'm also tired and stressed out because of a generally bad week of work (with the worst to come tomorrow . . . sigh . . . ) and that's never good for a happy, positive frame of mind. Couldn't go to the gym tonight to get rid of all the negative energy either, it's being renovated and they had to close it today so the construction crew could do the new electric wiring. I'll be able to go tomorrow, though, which is really all I have to look forward to, at the moment. Tonight's weather -- and tomorrow's during the day -- may kill my tomatoes, I put some plastic milk gallon containers over them, hope they do ok. This cold snap came up out of nowhere. Might snow tomorrow. And I had to go to another gym which doesn't have a digital scale, one of the old slide types, and their scale told me that I was a good 10 pounds heavier today than I was (according to the digital scale!) 48 hours previously. Logically I know that the slide scale is just off, or something (there's just no way I could have gained back 10 pounds in 48 hours . . . ) but my emotions don't listen to reason very well. It's another reason I want to get back to MY gym, I want to see what I weigh, really. So depressing, to see that a different scale says you've gained back all the weight you've lost . . .

Anyhow, just generally feeling irksome.

So tonight, instead of busting my butt for something that might not happen, I gave myself a treat and bought myself some books (Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett and a new edition of The Princess Bride, because my original one gave out a few years back) and got some really quality chinese food and ate it in the restaurant, by way of comfort food. Egg rolls -- really good ones -- and a book can always lift my spirits.

Worked for a while until I got home, and now the muscles ache in my back from stress, and my headache is in the process of returning. I really don't want to work tomorrow, it's going to be bad, there's no two ways about it.

But after work I can go to the gym and spend 2 hours on the treadmill, if I want to. And then, it'll be the weekend.

I just hope I can get up the oomph to finish what I started with the chicken coop, the raw materials are slowly taking over our garage!


Whitewater

 

[write2caroline]

Don't lose heart. They may come around and esp if you are without Rooster - Mine is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUD! I do live in the rural burbs so everyone has roosters around here.

Keep building the coop. If you are planning to get chicks they won't be in the coop for a month at least whilst in the brooder anyway till they feather out and they are super cute.

Have a back up plan too for concealing the chickens like lattice and some nice green vines - here in florida the Kudsu? I think it is called! It is pretty and grows everywhere even where you don't want it but I could hid a coop under it if I had to! Or paint the coop up like a play house! Chickens are silent at night unless something scares them - they can't see and don't want to be noticed by predators and when they are louder - I have one who makes a fuss announcing every egg and the other 3 lay eggs in silence.

Caroline

 

[isabrownmom]

Pictures, PLEASE!! My eyes start to glaze over reading but pictures say a thousand words!! Can't wait to SEE what you have been doing !! Get that camera out!!

 

[Whitewater]

9 May 2010 (Mother's Day)

This next Saturday, my b-i-l the professional carpenter is going to come over and help us with the coop in the afternoon! Yay! The plan is to put the big ol' human-sized run door in, to put the whole frame together, and to get the front wall of the coop (which includes the egg door) totally put together. I think we can do that if we all help.

This means that this week I have to finish staining all the lumber, get another quart of stain, buy the brackets we need (and the screws) and a few hinges. I think I might splurge on the hinges, have to go to HD and see what they have. Need hinges for the regular door and the egg door. Eventually we're going to need hinges for the access door too, but one thing at a time.

This weekend we finished putting together the frames for all the exterior walls and cut all the lumber necessary for the nest boxes. And I discovered that if we put the siding on the walls with the untreated cedar side out, the interior of the coop will wind up already painted, and we won't have to do it! We got all the siding from Craigslist, you may recall, and one side is untreated cedar, and the other side is exterior semi-gloss white, and a good thick coating too. Thank goodness, trying to paint all of that would have been a royal pain in the rump.

We would have gotten more done this weekend but we had to get with the families for Mother's Day. I might as well say right now that my family is fairly dysfunctional -- Hubby's however, works well, and I typically have a far better time with my in-laws than I do with my actual parents. If I stay on this forum long enough, you'll get to hear all the gory details . . . suffice to say that my mother pretty much complained the entire time about stuff that really was insignificant. I was wishing all the time that I could be at home, outside, working on my garden. Or playing with the dogs, or staining the coop, or something!

The goal is to get the coop finished by June 19th, so that we have a window before we're supposed to pick up our chickens (at the end of June) for Animal Control to come out and inspect our building (yes, that's part of the permit process). I can't imagine that they would have an issue with it, but who knows?

This week, before BIL comes over, we're going to level the cinder blocks and finish staining the frame. Next week's plan is to put the rest of the siding on the outer 3 walls, then put the hen house frame in, and possibly get the floor and the next boxes in also. We'll see.

As for photos, I don't want to violate Garden Coop's wishes by posting detailed pictures of the construction process, but maybe (now that it's not freezing and raining and cloudy) I can get a few shots of everything in the garage . . . *man* are there a lot of materials involved in this project!

We managed to talk to a neighbor today that we haven't yet managed to talk to (part of that is that they just moved in a couple weeks ago) and sure enough, they hadn't even realized we'd sent them a letter and permission form. Hubby said (he did the talking, while I was in the shower) that they seemed receptive to the idea, which is nice. He didn't get a chance to talk to them for a long time, they were on their way to leave somewhere, but the short conversation was very positive, which is reassuring to both of us! Hubby gave them a new copy of the letter and the form, and they said they'd read it. Cross your fingers!


Whitewater

 

[AccioSarah]

I haven't read all the posts yet... but will after I ask you this...
Whitewater as in the college?
Just curious!

 

[Whitewater]

Nope, sorry, Sarah, not the college. Nor the political scandal, and I don't river raft, either

Whitewater