Chicken coop built, getting ready for the rest

 Mark built this coop over the past few days with materials we had on hand in the garage.  Some of the materials were used when he built our house.

We were offered eight older hens from someone at my work - they are getting young chickens and needed to make some room.  Since the hens were still laying, he offered to help us get started with some seasoned tame chickens, instead of trying to raise young chicks from the start.  This is all Mark's handiwork - I am like a person trying to eat soup upside-down when it comes to a drill and a saw... my ambidextrousness gets in the way and I try to do everything backwards, which is not often safe.  Mark helped me worry through the nestboxes and I have some exterior mistint paint (purple!) to paint the exterior with.

The coop is moveable so we can try out a few places - and we have some fence on hand that will work for the job, as well.  Now we just have to paint it, move it, and fence it.. then go pick up the chickens and supplies and see how we do as egg farmers :)

 We all got in on painting it - including impromptu folk art by me.  The purple was an exterior mistint and I put varnish over the the enamel paints from my art box.  Esme added flowers, and had to try out all the 'amenities'.

A different kind of project for me

Esme got to watch her mom use power tools today. She drug her chair into the garage and watched from a safe distance, kept asking me 'Are you done yet?' I felt like we were on a family trip in the car, she asked so often.


Extremely rustic vanity cabinet, made by Mom
I've been in the mood to fix up things in general, and this room needed all the help it could get with the concrete floor and corner

I've had this in mind for a while, and decided to try hard at it today. Mark said he would be available if needed, but let me try on my own, which was good. I feel 'left-handed' when I am using tools, like everything is on the wrong side of where I need it to be and that often keeps me from attempting. I've been known to hammer a screw into a board, but that is a rare occasion. If I work at it hard enough I get what I planned sometimes, and I learn more about my own process to get something done.

This little cabinet was made out of some scrap materials we had in the garage. It does its job, and I think I can make something even better further down the road. Mark said we could have bought a little vanity - that most people would have found that easier. Well, I am not the average bear when it comes to that. Removing the perfectly good sink would have meant replumbing. And yes, I'm in the plumbing department, but that does not sound 'easier' to me than hashing and seeing what I can do with materials on hand. The curtain is on a wire between eye hooks and has a lanyard hook so the wire can be easily detached, curtain removed and washed. The whole cabinet fits snug under the sink but also pulls out for cleaning. I might paint it with the blue mistint paint or leave it in the oak plywood it is now.

So, not square, not excellent 'woodworking', but I'm still proud of it. And since all of the materials were already in the garage, it just cost me about three hours of on-and-off construction time.