I guess normal people would have had a coop completed BEFORE they purchased their baby chickens..Well..since we aren’t normal people and tend to fly by the seat of our pants, we are now in a rush designing, planning and constructing a coop for our lovely little darlings. I have spent the past week scouring pinterest and other chicken enthusiast blogs to try to come up with something really cool..and VERY colorful. We are thinking about using some of the designs below to come up with something that is functional and easy to maintain. There are so many ideas out there and I am mentally exhausted from trying to draw out different ideas I have in mind. I have no real experience in building anything..sure, I built the girls bookcases and painted an old desk in the past..but those things had real plans that I purchased and used in order to make all the cuts correctly, all the measurements were done by a pro. This time, well….I am on my own.
I want to have the coop a bright citrus-y orange color with ocean blue shutters and white trim. I want it to be cedar shake with a metal roof that will be easily cleaned. I like the saltbox house design and will probably incorporate that style into our coop. I am just too excited to think about the final product. I think I hold myself to too high of standards..so I am hoping for the best. I will be showing the building process in the next few posts..so with fingers crossed..we are starting on the base this weekend. I can’t wait to show off the final product!
Initial Drawings that I sketched out for our coop…(don’t laugh…I have NO real construction/architecture training)
I like the simplicity of this little green house..easy to build and big enough for all of our chicks.
This whole coop is AWESOME–I love the colors especially the bright orange and reds.
This coop is just as sweet as they come. I think this may be a little too big for us..but we may use a little of this for inspiration on a smaller scale.
I love the earthy colored stains used on this coop and the different wood textures they used.
We will definitely make the run much larger but the actual coop is just the right size.
I think we are going to have a 8ft x 12ft enclosed run..the coop will probably be 3ft x 4ft.
On top of trying to get this coop together..the weather has been anything but cooperative. It’s been cold, and rainy, and just plain yuck. Winter is hanging on for dear life, and Spring has been too long for my liking. Today we got a little break not from the weather of course, but from the stress of having our plate just a little too full. Margot had a little fieldtrip to the Crab Orchard Wildlife Refuge. They trekked out into a large field to the edge of a pond to collect “critters” as the guide put it. With fishnets and buckets in hand, they waded out into the murky water to do some collecting..but to be quite honest, I don’t think they had a clue what to do. They actually found it more interesting that the boots kept their feet dry even while ankle deep in water. It was quite chilly but we had fun anyway. I don’t think Margot is much into the lake “critters” though……
