New Project

I think I stopped blogging because the Hawaii posts were making me too depressed. I might go back and finish them another time but in an effort to keep going, I thought I'd put those posts on hold.

As most of you probably know I have a new project. I have wanted to get chickens for a really long time, and I think I've even blogged about it. Well I asked the landlord and he said yes so I started looking at chickens (from KSL classified) and coops. I had already done some research so I knew what I wanted and thought I could design it on my own. But I also wanted something cute. Once I found this picture I knew what I wanted.

Oh its so cute!

Unfortunately its taking much too long to finish this project. But at least I have something to do and to put off when I want to :)

I put together the run first. I figured it was easier and I could figure out what I was doing. It did go together pretty easy. Once it was all together I realized it was way tooo big. Umm chickens don't need a 4' tall run! I didn't have to make additional cuts cause Lowe's cut each 8' 2x2 in half but thats why its so big.

I didn't plan to add a human sized door so I did that afterwards. I've stained it a couple of times to help weatherize it.... hopefully. So now I just need to staple on the hardware cloth around the outside, add some wheels (its so big I want to be able to move it around easier). I think I'll use regular chicken wire for the roof as its lighter weight.

I got a bunch of free pallets so I could use the wood for the outside of the coop. Many, many hours and blisters later this is the sorry pile of only semi usable wood I was able to pull off and I've had to rethink my idea of free wood...

The rest of the pallets still sit in the backyard mocking me.

I've gotten the 2x4's bolted to the wagon and now just need to afix the flooring to the 2x4's. Which I've painted on the underside so it can withstand the weather.

I thought I'd attach this picture to show why some things are going slow. Coping saws aren't really designed for this. Fortunately the cuts haven't had to be real acurate yet....

I did just purchase this tool hoping that any future cuts can go a little faster and a little straighter :)