Well, based on KitsapFG's comment, I should start this post by saying, it's not quite DONE! However, I did do as she said, I used the beautiful weather to my advantage and worked from nearly dawn to dusk on painting my coop Friday. Saturday of course was all-day base ball games for the kids, followed by the celebration of my youngest's 5th birthday. Friday however, he was my little child labor buddy.
That's right, he begged and begged to help me paint, so I obliged. And where better for a little shortie to paint but the mini-run below the coop. Like I wanted to crawl around on the ground painting?
Though, I digress. First things first. What's the first rule of painting? It takes 2 hours to paint and 3 hours to prep. Well, it didn't work out quite like that, but I did have a bit of prep work. Less because I purposely painted before I installed the hardware. Smart huh?
Those are from left to right, the two doors to the nesting boxes, my clean out door on top of the final side wall siding, the chicken door and my roost.
I also had to vacuum the coop, but there the little boy wanted to help, so he vacuumed while I tapped.
As you can see, the day started out a bit cloudy, as the forecast was for possible morning showers. I had a tarp ready for the doors if that happened, but alas, the forecasters were wrong for the 365th time in the last year, and it just turned sunny and hot. So hot that I threw a T-shirt over my neck to keep from worsening my sunburn. Then we started painting (finally as my son said, hehe).
I didn't really have a plan, but rather just saw something and painted it, starting with the trim, which may get a second coat of a different color.
After a while, I couldn't keep straight what needed to be cut in vs. rolled (of course I was rolling this, I almost broke out the paint sprayer, hehe), so I did a little bit of both, where ever it was needed.
Don't I look attractive in my paint clothes and Sahara head dress? My youngest should have had a similar set-up, not for sun protection, but a painters hat would have been nice. That paint DOES NOT come out of hair. Oops. Anyway, as you can see, my youngest paints faster than I do, he's almost done and I'm not even done with the outside.
Hmm, I wasn't sure what time it was since I didn't stop to look ever, but since my eldest was in that picture, I hadn't started the inside until after 4:15 when he gets home from school. He wanted to help but it just wasn't good timing with swim lessons at 5. Unlike every other time, I didn't go. I had a coop to paint and the weather was perfect for it. Our first 70 degree day of the year, or something like that. I just had to get to that inside. I decided to just paint everything since I had the paint and it would protect it from rotting (I used all untreated pine to build this, which would rot in our wet winters. Oh, and what do you think of the color? It's the trim color for our house. We painted last fall and I bought way too much trim paint and since you can't return it, I used it here. Whatever works!
Hehe, as you can see, I was a bit exhausted by then, so I not only crawled on the coop floor that we didn't think would hold me, but I crawled on it, sat on a stool on it, and even a CHAIR! Yep, I was tired and it made it easy to reach the ceiling. I just stayed on the floor joists whenever possible.
All I can say is man, the inside was much harder to paint than the outside. All that cutting in around the 2x3s, whew! Finally though, I got to the very end, painting the floor on my way out...
Hehe, you can see by the shadows, that it's late, but let's just say it's well after the kids bed time. And I still had to paint the doors. Let's just say I painted the reverse side of the siding while the one side was still wet, then brought the chickens in while there was just enough light to see. Then I cleaned up, took a bath to ease sore muscles and collapsed into bed, all to wake up bright and early this morning for a 9 AM baseball game.
Tomorrow will be much better though, I get to get up at the crack of dawn to join my brother down in Puyallup (about an hour drive) for the Mother Earth News Festival! He went today and had a blast, he met Joel Salatin and got to talk with the Editor in Chief of Mother Earth News. He got him to consider making urban homesteading a bigger part of the magazine. Way to go bro!
Anyway, that's about it for me for this post. I'm tired, it's midnight and I have to be up in a few hours. Hope you enjoyed this installment of "How the Coop Turns"...
That's right, he begged and begged to help me paint, so I obliged. And where better for a little shortie to paint but the mini-run below the coop. Like I wanted to crawl around on the ground painting?
Though, I digress. First things first. What's the first rule of painting? It takes 2 hours to paint and 3 hours to prep. Well, it didn't work out quite like that, but I did have a bit of prep work. Less because I purposely painted before I installed the hardware. Smart huh?
Those are from left to right, the two doors to the nesting boxes, my clean out door on top of the final side wall siding, the chicken door and my roost.
I also had to vacuum the coop, but there the little boy wanted to help, so he vacuumed while I tapped.
As you can see, the day started out a bit cloudy, as the forecast was for possible morning showers. I had a tarp ready for the doors if that happened, but alas, the forecasters were wrong for the 365th time in the last year, and it just turned sunny and hot. So hot that I threw a T-shirt over my neck to keep from worsening my sunburn. Then we started painting (finally as my son said, hehe).
I didn't really have a plan, but rather just saw something and painted it, starting with the trim, which may get a second coat of a different color.
After a while, I couldn't keep straight what needed to be cut in vs. rolled (of course I was rolling this, I almost broke out the paint sprayer, hehe), so I did a little bit of both, where ever it was needed.
Don't I look attractive in my paint clothes and Sahara head dress? My youngest should have had a similar set-up, not for sun protection, but a painters hat would have been nice. That paint DOES NOT come out of hair. Oops. Anyway, as you can see, my youngest paints faster than I do, he's almost done and I'm not even done with the outside.
Hmm, I wasn't sure what time it was since I didn't stop to look ever, but since my eldest was in that picture, I hadn't started the inside until after 4:15 when he gets home from school. He wanted to help but it just wasn't good timing with swim lessons at 5. Unlike every other time, I didn't go. I had a coop to paint and the weather was perfect for it. Our first 70 degree day of the year, or something like that. I just had to get to that inside. I decided to just paint everything since I had the paint and it would protect it from rotting (I used all untreated pine to build this, which would rot in our wet winters. Oh, and what do you think of the color? It's the trim color for our house. We painted last fall and I bought way too much trim paint and since you can't return it, I used it here. Whatever works!
Hehe, as you can see, I was a bit exhausted by then, so I not only crawled on the coop floor that we didn't think would hold me, but I crawled on it, sat on a stool on it, and even a CHAIR! Yep, I was tired and it made it easy to reach the ceiling. I just stayed on the floor joists whenever possible.
All I can say is man, the inside was much harder to paint than the outside. All that cutting in around the 2x3s, whew! Finally though, I got to the very end, painting the floor on my way out...
Hehe, you can see by the shadows, that it's late, but let's just say it's well after the kids bed time. And I still had to paint the doors. Let's just say I painted the reverse side of the siding while the one side was still wet, then brought the chickens in while there was just enough light to see. Then I cleaned up, took a bath to ease sore muscles and collapsed into bed, all to wake up bright and early this morning for a 9 AM baseball game.
Tomorrow will be much better though, I get to get up at the crack of dawn to join my brother down in Puyallup (about an hour drive) for the Mother Earth News Festival! He went today and had a blast, he met Joel Salatin and got to talk with the Editor in Chief of Mother Earth News. He got him to consider making urban homesteading a bigger part of the magazine. Way to go bro!
Anyway, that's about it for me for this post. I'm tired, it's midnight and I have to be up in a few hours. Hope you enjoyed this installment of "How the Coop Turns"...
I will give you a Whoop and a Holler! Congratulations for getting so much work done and I love the pictures of you and your son hard at work!
ReplyDeleteThe color is really attractive and your hens are going to have a pretty swanky home when all is said and done.
Looking good! Does that mean the chickens are living in it now??? Hope you had fun at the fair, I heard about it a few days ago and was wishing we could fit it in.
ReplyDeleteYour coop is really coming along. Nice color too.
ReplyDelete