Building the Chicken Coop, Part Two, Rafters and Walls

I have come to the conclusion that straight, level and square are boring. Really. Crooked, leaning and sideways are quaint and charming, bringing a certain personality to a building. As long as the building doesn't fall down on my chickens and rabbits, I'm going to be a happy camper.

The building of the coop is slow going because I really don't have a clue of what things should look like when they are done. It took us two days to make the rafters because we had to redo them twice. The problem is Don tells me what to do then I do it while he's at work. He comes home, realizes the way he thought it would work, doesn't. So things come apart and we try again. That was the case with the rafters. When I was building them the second time, I naturally assumed if the two side pieces joined properly, the bottom piece would exactly fit in perfectly, it never occurred to me that it could fit in slanted so I never measured to make sure the sides were even. What I said about crooked and leaning notwithstanding; having the roof peaks pointing in all different directions is going to making roofing very difficult, no matter how 'quaint', not to mention interesting, the end result may look.

I've got to say the wall frames went along smoothly and now we are working on the walls. It probably went easier because I actually know what a wall should look like and I'm getting the hang of using the square & level. Mind you, when I use them, I tend to say, "Good enough" instead of "Perfect!" We're hoping with help to get the roof up this weekend. The kids and I work on the coop during the day and Don does a couple of hours after work, usually. Sometimes we stay out until it's too dark to see. We have come up with a new catch phrase as well when things aren't exactly fitting in perfectly "It's a chicken coop, not the Taj Mahal."

My attitude about this whole project has swung back and forth wildly, just like my hammer. At first, I thought it would be a great adventure and somewhat an accomplishment. By the time I finished the rafters I made a solemn oath never to build anything again. Now I'm thinking I better build something again. I put in a lot of effort and actually learned something, it'd be a shame not to use it...sometime...way in the future, when I have recovered.