And this cuteness isn’t an anomaly! There are some really cute DIY chicken coops in the world, like these:
from Backyard Chickens, built alongside the house
from Backyard Chickens – love the window boxes!
by Heather Bullard – just so perfect
from The Real Housewives of Riverton – the blue looks great!
by Trevormade – the colors are so fun!
by The Art of Doing Stuff – seriously swanky, a Pottery Barn chicken coop!
and of course, ours! (I may be biased, and the photo isn’t the greatest, sorry, but it was CUTE! and almost entirely from salvaged material, too)
So now that you’re all ready for a cute chicken coop and a flock of feathery friends, meet Michelle and her awesome chicken coop + storage shed:
How to Build a DIY Chicken Coop – Storage Shed Combo
by Michelle from Chalkboardblue
Hi My name is Michelle from Chalkboardblue. My blog features projects that I design and build! Today I’m sharing with you how we built a Backyard Shed AND and Chicken Coop combination.
The front half of this structure pictured above is the shed portion. The back half is the Chicken Coop with its Outside Run.
We needed a Shed for our Backyard and a home for our Chickens. We decided to combine to the two.
This is the design we came up with.
We first dug out our area and put a floor on. Our backyard is somewhat on a slope so we had to raise our floor and put it on cement pilings to allow for water drainage. Here below we have the floor on and some walls up.
More walls… If you look closely there is a small inside wall for the Chicken Coop.
Next We placed Plywood on the outside. We then cut out the holes for our top window for the coop, the Nesting boxes below and the lower doors.
For our trim, we bought the large sheets of trim and ripped it on the table saw to the various sizes we wanted for our trim pieces. What I mean by trim pieces is the trim around all of the doors, on the doors and all of Board and Batton trim I placed on the shed. Here is a picture of the trim. I kept the trim color the same as it came for our window and door trim, but painted it for the Board and Batton.
Here is a picture of the doors I built and the large door grooved myself with the skill saw …
our Main door is a Split door to allow for ventilation…
Next I placed the Board & Batton trim. It is basically placed on just as if you were to do a wall of Board and Batton in your home.
We built some Nesting boxes…
Roosts for inside the coop…
Next we had to build our outside run.
setting the posts…
put top rails on
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Michelle, thank you so much for being our guest today! I love your chicken coop and so many of your projects!
Remodelaholics, fly (hehe) right over to Chalkboardblue to see Michelle’s awesome DIYing chops — don’t miss her brilliant folding wood totes and cubbies, and I’m drooling over her gorgeous fireplace, too!
Want to be featured? Link up here and submit your best project here.
Thank you for having me stop by today! The post looks great! I love all of the different coop ideas offered as well. So fabulous!
Thanks for being our guest, Michelle — great project, and a great post!
Very cute structure!
I would encourage you to rethink the use of chicken wire–dogs, raccoons, opossums, etc. can easily rip it right apart (unfortunately, I’ve experienced this first hand) and the wide opening wire used on the outside run which raccoons can reach right through and nab a chicken. Hardware cloth is recommended to keep the girls safe from predators. Also, the pic don’t show it (so may it’s there), but you should also have a way to secure the doors and windows. Hook latches aren’t recommended (again, raccoons), but there are several that are twist to close, or the latches that are secure without having to be locked. With those wood floors, keep an eye out for rats (which will chew through the wood–yes, I’ve seen this happen).
I know many people will protest, saying that they don’t have these types of predators in their areas, but just because they don’t see them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Hungry animals (whose natural habitat may have been overtaken by housing developments, or during winter when food is scarce) tend to be very persistent and resourceful. In addition, a primary predator/killer of chickens tends to be dogs–and that includes the neighbor’s cute dog who is amazing with kids, cats, etc. (In the beginning, we had a “friendly” neighborhood dog rip chicken wire off our coop and kill all of our hens–in one night. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence.)
When a new baby begins to crawl, we often get on our hands and knees to see possible hazards from the baby’s perspective. What’s available that might hurt the baby? It’s a similar idea when having chickens. Think like a predator–how will a predator get to your girls?
Thanks for the info, Mary — always very good to think about!
Hey Cass, I’m really curious about raising chickens. In looking at these coops it seems that the runs are small. How many chickens do they accommodate? My neighbor has chickens but they have the run of the back yard, it is fenced. I don’t particularly want to fence in my yard but is this enough room for a bunch of chickens?
Wow! What an awesome project!! I love your design and the concept is amazing, exactly what I was looking for!
A utility shed and chicken coop combo we could build ourselves. I was only planning to have 2 chickens so I bought a little prefab coop and ended up with 7 chickens, so I added a metal 7′ run from Amazon..still too small..so bought someone’s homebuilt portable chicken coop on a trailer..put up fencing and netting to enclose it, which is 12’by 12′ only to find the coop is not waterproof. …eeha so now figuring what to do..keep patching things together or build a real coop.
Your design is my inspiration and my poor husband is getting fed up with me and my chicken obsession! Actually because we just built our new home on 7.5 acres with 2 ponds..and we are dealing with his stage 4 melanoma liver cancer…so trying hard to accomplish everything and not overwhelm him..but oh..it’s hard..don’t know why I am pouting this out to you here..prolly because I don’t know you..
So forgive my rambling and too much information..but..I hope and pray we can build something like this and soon.
Thanks for your post and the details you provided!
Robin