8X12 Chicken Coop

Siding

I decided to side the coop with the exterior grade plywood with grooves in it. Pretty easy. I did learn, if you want the most accurate cuts, temporarily screw the sheet in place and trace the cuts rather than try to measure and layout.

I marked the doors and cut them out with a circular saw. Later I'll figure out a way to trim and hang the doors.

The East and West Walls

Ok, this portion of the build was very fluid. I had no idea what to do until I did it. In the end I decided to put a full sized door on each end, and a window in each door. I build the walls in place, rather than building them on the floor and tipping them up. There was a lot of cutting to fit.

I used a header above the door, 2x4 this time, there won't be a whole lot of load to support.

Door opening in the east wall.

More studs in the East wall. The west wall will be identical. I have a single rafter up as a guide.

BEES!

My wife's beehives arrived. How exiting! They have nothing to do with the chicken coop.

The wife nailing together deep hive bodies.

The various brickabrack that make up an apiary (bee hive to the layperson)

The South Wall

The South wall is going to be a wall with as many windows as possible. I started by laying out the windows and getting a feel for where things would line up. It turns out 5 of my windows fits about as snugly as I could hope for. Because the windows are greater than 16" wide, I'll have to use a header. I used two 2x6 with a strip of 1/2 plywood in between them. I then doubled up the studs between each window. A professional would probably have an issue with how this was executed, but I think it will work fine.

After adding the doubled studs, I added a horizontal lower and upper plate for fastening the window frame to. I then added short studs in the portions of the wall not occupied by windows to maintain my 16" on center studs to fasten the plywood siding to.


South wall with the header.

2x6 header with West end king and jack stud (the king has a screw in it). It looks like there is plywood between the king and jack studs, but its just some defects in the 2x4 studs.


I made a spacer block to set the stud spacing exactly to fit the windows.

Showing more or less how the window will sit in the opening.


The South wall, stood up, with some of the short joists added in. I'll do the same thing to the top.

The North Wall

I build the North wall 5' tall, no windows. Pretty straight forward. I built it on the floor and then tipped it into place. Then I screwed the bottom plate to the floor/joists below with 3" screws. Standard 16" on center construction.


The North wall with the studs located where the sheets of siding will overlap. I want those to be accurately spaced.

The completed wall tipped up and screwed down.

The Windows

Its not time for the windows yet, but I took a trip back to our top secret repository of junk, aka the "good junkyard" and grabbed some windows we saved from when my brother re-windowed his cabin. I haven't devised a plan yet, but I'm thinking I'll get 6 windows on the South wall (the tall wall) and a window each on the East and West ends.


Its hard to get anything down without a 120 hp diesel.

Windows in frames with screens. I think I will have to pull the windows of the frames. They started life in 1989 as barn windows from Menards.

Adding the Floor.

Of course this coop will be over dirt, so I want all surfaces exposed to earth to be green treated. I added (3) 3/4" sheets of treated plywood to the joists with stainless screws. Nothing fancy, but I did take care when laying out the joist to make sure the plywood fit perfectly on an 8'x12' joist layout. Even with all my care, when the plywood is laid edge to edge is actually 12-3/16", but I figured I could live with being off 3/16".