Adventures in Chicken Coop construction, part 2
Continuing on from yesterdays post, here's more pics and reporting of me and my dad building a chicken coop
So, once again my dad ran to the hardware shop while I was stil abed, and picked up some 2"x1" for building the frames of doors and door like objects. And, once again, more screws. Same length but thinner of the ones we;d used for fastening on boards to the first wall last night - to reduce splitting. Also for the small holes of the piano hinge we were using in a few places. So we got straight to work and put up the back wall (the slightly taller one), then put a 2x1 beam along the back of the boards, just under the middle horizontal beam. We fastened the 2x1 to the boards, not the frame, then cut the boards between the 2 beams, resulting in this:
and this:
So, then we focused on building a proper frame for the bits we took out. this was to hinge upwards on a piano hinge, for accessing the coop to clean it out. For added fun, we wanted to have another hatch that would open downards from here to get at the next boxes and get eggs out. This worked surprinsingly well:
And with the egg door open:
On the inside of the hatch is nailed a panel of laminated hardboard from the back of a cabinet, and a bit of 2"x1" to fasten the hinge into. There's also now 2 2"x1"s on the inside of that panel, which will be visible in another shot.
So after that we fastened the panel to the wall, sanding down a couple of edges that were sticking as we went, leading to:
And with the egg door open:
And the cleaning hatch open:
Note the frame as described, 2"x1"s across. Next we moved around to the other side and cut out 2 holes for the door and window. Window in the top left, door in the bottom right. Once we had these cut out, we backed them with hardboard again and just put the hinges straight on without bothering to add 2"x1" this time. Window hinges up, door hinges down. While my dad was working on the door, I built a small triangular frame out of 3"x2" to catch the door and also to support the ramp up to the coop. Here's those bits, doors closed:
And opened:
Once the coop is in place, I'll be adding a leg at the outside point of the triangle. At this point we also realised that we needed to put a rafter in the middle of the roof so it wouldn;t sag. Cutting this to be the right shape was a severe pain in the ass.
So the next step was to add the other two walls. Now, what I hadn't mentioned before was that the boards we were using were long enough to cut a board for the front and a board for the back out with an inch left in the middle. So our plan for the sides (which slope) was to cut the boards too big and then cut the diagonal line in afterwards. So we did that, and halfway through, took a picture:
Woo, 3 out of 4 walls up! Note the rafter visible in this shot. Also, the stepped boards and the white line of the string marking the diagonal the roof should take. We kept on and got the fourth wall up, then broke for the day:
There is, incidentally, very little better than coming in from a hard days work to a dinner of barbecued steak and mushrooms, with roast potatoes and cold cider. Mmmm.
So, overall for the day is a bit behind schedule - Wanted the whole coop done, but I'm happy with 4 walls. Will be working on my own tomorrow morning as my dad has actual work to do, so I'll get everything done on the coop but roofing it so we can get it done and start on the run.
So, once again my dad ran to the hardware shop while I was stil abed, and picked up some 2"x1" for building the frames of doors and door like objects. And, once again, more screws. Same length but thinner of the ones we;d used for fastening on boards to the first wall last night - to reduce splitting. Also for the small holes of the piano hinge we were using in a few places. So we got straight to work and put up the back wall (the slightly taller one), then put a 2x1 beam along the back of the boards, just under the middle horizontal beam. We fastened the 2x1 to the boards, not the frame, then cut the boards between the 2 beams, resulting in this:
and this:
So, then we focused on building a proper frame for the bits we took out. this was to hinge upwards on a piano hinge, for accessing the coop to clean it out. For added fun, we wanted to have another hatch that would open downards from here to get at the next boxes and get eggs out. This worked surprinsingly well:
And with the egg door open:
On the inside of the hatch is nailed a panel of laminated hardboard from the back of a cabinet, and a bit of 2"x1" to fasten the hinge into. There's also now 2 2"x1"s on the inside of that panel, which will be visible in another shot.
So after that we fastened the panel to the wall, sanding down a couple of edges that were sticking as we went, leading to:
And with the egg door open:
And the cleaning hatch open:
Note the frame as described, 2"x1"s across. Next we moved around to the other side and cut out 2 holes for the door and window. Window in the top left, door in the bottom right. Once we had these cut out, we backed them with hardboard again and just put the hinges straight on without bothering to add 2"x1" this time. Window hinges up, door hinges down. While my dad was working on the door, I built a small triangular frame out of 3"x2" to catch the door and also to support the ramp up to the coop. Here's those bits, doors closed:
And opened:
Once the coop is in place, I'll be adding a leg at the outside point of the triangle. At this point we also realised that we needed to put a rafter in the middle of the roof so it wouldn;t sag. Cutting this to be the right shape was a severe pain in the ass.
So the next step was to add the other two walls. Now, what I hadn't mentioned before was that the boards we were using were long enough to cut a board for the front and a board for the back out with an inch left in the middle. So our plan for the sides (which slope) was to cut the boards too big and then cut the diagonal line in afterwards. So we did that, and halfway through, took a picture:
Woo, 3 out of 4 walls up! Note the rafter visible in this shot. Also, the stepped boards and the white line of the string marking the diagonal the roof should take. We kept on and got the fourth wall up, then broke for the day:
There is, incidentally, very little better than coming in from a hard days work to a dinner of barbecued steak and mushrooms, with roast potatoes and cold cider. Mmmm.
So, overall for the day is a bit behind schedule - Wanted the whole coop done, but I'm happy with 4 walls. Will be working on my own tomorrow morning as my dad has actual work to do, so I'll get everything done on the coop but roofing it so we can get it done and start on the run.