We are getting closer to finishing our chicken coop! When we built the frame, things were going along so effortlessly that I was feeling a little smug about our carpentry skills. I thought to myself "Wow...we are pretty darn awesome at this building stuff". Clearly I needed to be brought down a peg or two, and figuring out those darn doors was just the thing to do that. We had so much trouble with them that it would be laughable if I wasn't still so irritated by it!
Because of the where the plywood floor sheet ended, we only had a certain amount of space to work with if we wanted the doors to be flush. In hindsight, we should have allowed more room but that knowledge doesn't do any good when the coop is already 75% built. So we struggled with getting the solid door framed and hung while allowing enough room for it to clear the floor and close flush with the front of the coop. We ended up with a small gap at the bottom, which my inner perfectionist was throwing a little hissy fit about. Little did I know, she would have much bigger things to complain about when we attempted to make the big door.
We framed it out just fine, and even fit it into the space before we applied the hardware cloth to make sure that it fit and allowed enough space the hinges (which it did). But once we stapled on the wire mesh and went to put it back into the opening, we quickly ran into a problem....it no longer fit! It was juuuust enough out of whack that we couldn't wedge it in there. We tried taking the hardware cloth off, and re-stapling it to the other side, still with no luck. The best we can figure is that the door is just really heavy because its so big and has such a large area of wire mesh on it, which causes it to tilt to one side. We managed to rig it up so it fits and we could get the hinges on; but now there is a big gap on the hinge side, and a gap along the top edge of the door. Sigh. I am a horrible perfectionist when it comes to projects like this, and any deviation from the perfect finished product that I have in my head ends up really stressing me out. In turn, I started to stress the guys out with my heavy sighs and ideas of how to fix it (two doors instead of one? Re-cutting the wood and rebuilding the door?). Finally, Matthew gave an exasperated sigh and said "It is JUST a chicken coop"!! Sheepishly, I relented because after all...it IS just a chicken coop. The chickens wont care, and anyone who judges me by the straightness of my chicken coop door is not going to be someone who's opinion I care a whole lot about anyways!
Once we had the doors on and hung, we finished up the roof by adding a little overhanging trim. I think it makes the finished product look a little more put together. All we have left to do now is to install the roost, build the nesting boxes, add the handles and latches to the doors, shingle the roof and paint the whole thing. None of those are essential before getting chicks, which we hope to do the first week of March! We are so excited and cant wait to bring our new little friends home ♥
Because of the where the plywood floor sheet ended, we only had a certain amount of space to work with if we wanted the doors to be flush. In hindsight, we should have allowed more room but that knowledge doesn't do any good when the coop is already 75% built. So we struggled with getting the solid door framed and hung while allowing enough room for it to clear the floor and close flush with the front of the coop. We ended up with a small gap at the bottom, which my inner perfectionist was throwing a little hissy fit about. Little did I know, she would have much bigger things to complain about when we attempted to make the big door.
We framed it out just fine, and even fit it into the space before we applied the hardware cloth to make sure that it fit and allowed enough space the hinges (which it did). But once we stapled on the wire mesh and went to put it back into the opening, we quickly ran into a problem....it no longer fit! It was juuuust enough out of whack that we couldn't wedge it in there. We tried taking the hardware cloth off, and re-stapling it to the other side, still with no luck. The best we can figure is that the door is just really heavy because its so big and has such a large area of wire mesh on it, which causes it to tilt to one side. We managed to rig it up so it fits and we could get the hinges on; but now there is a big gap on the hinge side, and a gap along the top edge of the door. Sigh. I am a horrible perfectionist when it comes to projects like this, and any deviation from the perfect finished product that I have in my head ends up really stressing me out. In turn, I started to stress the guys out with my heavy sighs and ideas of how to fix it (two doors instead of one? Re-cutting the wood and rebuilding the door?). Finally, Matthew gave an exasperated sigh and said "It is JUST a chicken coop"!! Sheepishly, I relented because after all...it IS just a chicken coop. The chickens wont care, and anyone who judges me by the straightness of my chicken coop door is not going to be someone who's opinion I care a whole lot about anyways!
Once we had the doors on and hung, we finished up the roof by adding a little overhanging trim. I think it makes the finished product look a little more put together. All we have left to do now is to install the roost, build the nesting boxes, add the handles and latches to the doors, shingle the roof and paint the whole thing. None of those are essential before getting chicks, which we hope to do the first week of March! We are so excited and cant wait to bring our new little friends home ♥
