First and foremost, many thanks to JackE, Howard E, Cholland, and pretty much anyone else that has posted about how to build your Woods coop. I probably referenced your posts or articles and your contributions have been invaluable.
There's not much I will say to add to the discussion of how the coop functions. I think everything has been covered already. I will throw a lot of pictures in to help people who may try to build this by visualizing one way this coop has been built. If I did it over again, I'd definitely change my construction process - mostly the way I framed the side walls. More on that later. I made this an 8'x12', with plans to make overhangs all the way around.
Brief background - I'm in Anchorage, Alaska. Yes, it gets cold here, but not that cold. Anchorage is very mild by comparison to the interior parts of the state because we are close to the ocean. However, we do have much less sunlight during the winter than in the lower 48. On Dec 21st, the shortest day of the year, the sun peaks over the mountain range around 11:10 am and sets by 3:10 pm. Because the sun stays very low in the sky, hardly any of that sunlight makes it to our backyard, which is on the north side of our house. I put the coop in one spot that gets some of that light. I am confident that this coop design is the best way to give our chickens as much natural light as possible.
My wife has wanted chickens our whole marriage, and this year we decided to order some back in January, I think it was. With chicks scheduled to arrive in mid-April, we knew we'd be putting ourselves in a tight spot in terms of building a coop after the snow melted but before the chicks outgrew a brooder. Little did we know that the world would shut down, which would give me plenty of time to build (but make trips to the store pretty infrequent for a while there).
That being said, the chicks got to be about this big before I realized I needed to get cracking.
Build site. Only the top few inches of ground are thawed at this point.
First the pier blocks and skids
Then build the floor and sheet it. I bought a piece of 8x12 linoleum that I laid right afterward, but I didn't take a pic.
Up went the monitor wall, followed by the sheeted back wall. Then the nitpicky work of cutting and installing rafters. Then framing the side walls by toenailing each stud separately. In hindsight, I really should have just made a wall frame and installed it. I didn't pay close enough attention to the walls staying plumb (despite the bracing), and as a result, my whole structure isn't plumb. That made siding a pain in the rear end later... As well as installing the man door...
Next frame the front wall and cut openings out with a router. This is also a good time to mention that I decided to frame the walls 16" on center, largely because my choice of siding (3/8" OSB Smartside) is pretty flimsy and calls for 16"OC. I build a large shed with it last year, and liked it, but definitely felt better about using 16" framing. I also used construction adhesive over all the studs to beef it up. Knowing that my structure will move a bit with the freeze-thaw cycles of the seasons, I like a little extra peace of mind that comes with the adhesive.
Up it goes. It was also about this time that I realized I needed another 2x4 in the center of the monitor wall so I had a nailer for siding.
Followed by more rafters and framing in the side windows. Here again, I wish I could have a re-do. Instead of centering the windows, I would have offset them to allow more room for a pop door. At this point, I wasn't thinking about where the pop door would be (one of the lacking pieces of info in the Woods book, IMO - even though it mentions them being part of the screened opening?)
Time to sheet the roof. Here again, I changed my mind. I had purchased 10' OSB to allow for an overhang, but by this point, I was too lazy to build them. Plus, I saw how tight it was going to be between my trees, and didn't want to prune too much away.
The siding was installed by screwing two 2x4s to the underside of the floor frame to act as cleats/supports for the siding before I could nail it in place. Windows were cut out with the router as before. You can also see that my siding doesn't QUITE make it to the peak of the structure. I cut pieces of scrap to fit. Between trim, caulk, and paint - I don't mind at all.
Time to roof the coop. I didn't get overly fancy with the flashing, but I did modify a piece of wall-to-roof flashing to go over the shingles at the peak of the roof. I covered all nails with roof cement. All the wood shavings and debris inside the coop made for an excellent construction site for toy bulldozers and tractors and cars
Time to make the man door. I had initially sided the wall with a man door and then cut out the opening with a circular saw, leaving about a half an inch or so (can't remember exactly) of overlap so that there's not an open gap around the perimeter of the door - to cut down on water intrusion and drafts. See the previous picture. If you're curious about how to do this - drill 4 small holes at the corners of your rough opening for the door from the inside. Go back outside and measure a line to your desired offset (1/2", 3/4" etc) using two of the holes as your guide. Draw a line using a straight edge and set your circular saw to the depth of the siding. Cut as much as you can with your circular saw and cut the remaining material from the corners using a multitool. The trim on the exterior of the door matches the perimeter of the siding. The framing on the interior of the door is inset back from the perimeter to fit inside the rough opening of the door.
Roost bars went in easily enough.
Getting ready for interior painting. This is where things took a drastic turn for the worse. I rented a sprayer from Home Depot and the experience did not go well. I've never used a paint sprayer like that before. I had tons of overspray (completely my fault for not taping off the windows and doors), the sprayer went through the primer and paint like crazy (and I didn't have enough), and kept getting plugged up. I ended up spending more time cleaning out the lines from previous renters than actually painting. It was beyond aggravating.
Installed windows after painting. I ended up buying basement sliders off Amazon for the monitor windows (about $60 ea) and cheap single-hung windows from Lowes (about $40 ea) for the lower windows. Finding windows had to be one of the most challenging aspects of designing the coop, and springtime in Alaska isn't a great time for sourcing used materials. I'm happy with the quality of my cheapish windows, but the big drawback is less ventilation than Woods' design. I think in Alaska that won't be too big of a problem, but in a warmer climate, it possibly could be.
Hardware cloth and trim
Pop door. I think it's 8" wide. Hopefully, the girls won't mind a bit of a squeeze as they get old. I'm already thinking I may need to change the way the pop door opens. I have it folded down now, and it gets lots of dirt and droppings on it. I wanted to be able to see them from the house without obstruction, so I didn't want the door swinging open to the right. But it may have to be that way after all. See how convoluted all that trim work is? Yeah, I could have saved myself an awful lot of work if I would have moved that window over a bit...
Here's where Woods may roll over in his grave.
Modified male plug to receive an extension cord...
powers an outlet and timer...
Which will turn on a light. I realized that even if we didn't want to supplement light in the winter (which it seems that most people do up here), we'll likely be in this coop A LOT during hours of darkness, and I didn't want to have to bring or wear a flashlight every time I go out there.
Example of interior window frames with hardware cloth.
Time for nest boxes! I bought some astroturf-type stuff at Home Depot and made little platforms for a 'roll away' design. One store-bought egg paid the ultimate sacrifice to be the guinea pig for determining how steep to make the slope. The nest box was made with leftover OSB.
Before the hinges were added for accessing the front of the boxes where the eggs roll to...
Almost final interior pics
My wife and kids painted the exterior. I added a run and steps to get in the coop. I may add some netting to keep birds in and cats or birds of prey out. Haven't done that yet.
Out of order, but here are the chukes enjoying their new coop.
There's not much I will say to add to the discussion of how the coop functions. I think everything has been covered already. I will throw a lot of pictures in to help people who may try to build this by visualizing one way this coop has been built. If I did it over again, I'd definitely change my construction process - mostly the way I framed the side walls. More on that later. I made this an 8'x12', with plans to make overhangs all the way around.
Brief background - I'm in Anchorage, Alaska. Yes, it gets cold here, but not that cold. Anchorage is very mild by comparison to the interior parts of the state because we are close to the ocean. However, we do have much less sunlight during the winter than in the lower 48. On Dec 21st, the shortest day of the year, the sun peaks over the mountain range around 11:10 am and sets by 3:10 pm. Because the sun stays very low in the sky, hardly any of that sunlight makes it to our backyard, which is on the north side of our house. I put the coop in one spot that gets some of that light. I am confident that this coop design is the best way to give our chickens as much natural light as possible.
My wife has wanted chickens our whole marriage, and this year we decided to order some back in January, I think it was. With chicks scheduled to arrive in mid-April, we knew we'd be putting ourselves in a tight spot in terms of building a coop after the snow melted but before the chicks outgrew a brooder. Little did we know that the world would shut down, which would give me plenty of time to build (but make trips to the store pretty infrequent for a while there).
That being said, the chicks got to be about this big before I realized I needed to get cracking.
Build site. Only the top few inches of ground are thawed at this point.
First the pier blocks and skids
Then build the floor and sheet it. I bought a piece of 8x12 linoleum that I laid right afterward, but I didn't take a pic.
Up went the monitor wall, followed by the sheeted back wall. Then the nitpicky work of cutting and installing rafters. Then framing the side walls by toenailing each stud separately. In hindsight, I really should have just made a wall frame and installed it. I didn't pay close enough attention to the walls staying plumb (despite the bracing), and as a result, my whole structure isn't plumb. That made siding a pain in the rear end later... As well as installing the man door...
Next frame the front wall and cut openings out with a router. This is also a good time to mention that I decided to frame the walls 16" on center, largely because my choice of siding (3/8" OSB Smartside) is pretty flimsy and calls for 16"OC. I build a large shed with it last year, and liked it, but definitely felt better about using 16" framing. I also used construction adhesive over all the studs to beef it up. Knowing that my structure will move a bit with the freeze-thaw cycles of the seasons, I like a little extra peace of mind that comes with the adhesive.
Up it goes. It was also about this time that I realized I needed another 2x4 in the center of the monitor wall so I had a nailer for siding.
Followed by more rafters and framing in the side windows. Here again, I wish I could have a re-do. Instead of centering the windows, I would have offset them to allow more room for a pop door. At this point, I wasn't thinking about where the pop door would be (one of the lacking pieces of info in the Woods book, IMO - even though it mentions them being part of the screened opening?)
Time to sheet the roof. Here again, I changed my mind. I had purchased 10' OSB to allow for an overhang, but by this point, I was too lazy to build them. Plus, I saw how tight it was going to be between my trees, and didn't want to prune too much away.
The siding was installed by screwing two 2x4s to the underside of the floor frame to act as cleats/supports for the siding before I could nail it in place. Windows were cut out with the router as before. You can also see that my siding doesn't QUITE make it to the peak of the structure. I cut pieces of scrap to fit. Between trim, caulk, and paint - I don't mind at all.
Time to roof the coop. I didn't get overly fancy with the flashing, but I did modify a piece of wall-to-roof flashing to go over the shingles at the peak of the roof. I covered all nails with roof cement. All the wood shavings and debris inside the coop made for an excellent construction site for toy bulldozers and tractors and cars
Time to make the man door. I had initially sided the wall with a man door and then cut out the opening with a circular saw, leaving about a half an inch or so (can't remember exactly) of overlap so that there's not an open gap around the perimeter of the door - to cut down on water intrusion and drafts. See the previous picture. If you're curious about how to do this - drill 4 small holes at the corners of your rough opening for the door from the inside. Go back outside and measure a line to your desired offset (1/2", 3/4" etc) using two of the holes as your guide. Draw a line using a straight edge and set your circular saw to the depth of the siding. Cut as much as you can with your circular saw and cut the remaining material from the corners using a multitool. The trim on the exterior of the door matches the perimeter of the siding. The framing on the interior of the door is inset back from the perimeter to fit inside the rough opening of the door.
Roost bars went in easily enough.
Getting ready for interior painting. This is where things took a drastic turn for the worse. I rented a sprayer from Home Depot and the experience did not go well. I've never used a paint sprayer like that before. I had tons of overspray (completely my fault for not taping off the windows and doors), the sprayer went through the primer and paint like crazy (and I didn't have enough), and kept getting plugged up. I ended up spending more time cleaning out the lines from previous renters than actually painting. It was beyond aggravating.
Installed windows after painting. I ended up buying basement sliders off Amazon for the monitor windows (about $60 ea) and cheap single-hung windows from Lowes (about $40 ea) for the lower windows. Finding windows had to be one of the most challenging aspects of designing the coop, and springtime in Alaska isn't a great time for sourcing used materials. I'm happy with the quality of my cheapish windows, but the big drawback is less ventilation than Woods' design. I think in Alaska that won't be too big of a problem, but in a warmer climate, it possibly could be.
Hardware cloth and trim
Pop door. I think it's 8" wide. Hopefully, the girls won't mind a bit of a squeeze as they get old. I'm already thinking I may need to change the way the pop door opens. I have it folded down now, and it gets lots of dirt and droppings on it. I wanted to be able to see them from the house without obstruction, so I didn't want the door swinging open to the right. But it may have to be that way after all. See how convoluted all that trim work is? Yeah, I could have saved myself an awful lot of work if I would have moved that window over a bit...
Here's where Woods may roll over in his grave.
Modified male plug to receive an extension cord...
powers an outlet and timer...
Which will turn on a light. I realized that even if we didn't want to supplement light in the winter (which it seems that most people do up here), we'll likely be in this coop A LOT during hours of darkness, and I didn't want to have to bring or wear a flashlight every time I go out there.
Example of interior window frames with hardware cloth.
Time for nest boxes! I bought some astroturf-type stuff at Home Depot and made little platforms for a 'roll away' design. One store-bought egg paid the ultimate sacrifice to be the guinea pig for determining how steep to make the slope. The nest box was made with leftover OSB.
Before the hinges were added for accessing the front of the boxes where the eggs roll to...
Almost final interior pics
My wife and kids painted the exterior. I added a run and steps to get in the coop. I may add some netting to keep birds in and cats or birds of prey out. Haven't done that yet.
Out of order, but here are the chukes enjoying their new coop.
