Today I cut the seven rafters for the roof trusses. The coop will have an interesting “saltbox”-style roof, spanning between a 6′ wall on the back to a 8′ wall on the front, with a 10′ peak.

It may seem counterintuitive to make the trusses as the next step after the floor, but it makes sense; easier to work on them on the floor than later when the walls are in place, and I can use the floor as a template for the sizing.

You may notice that three of the left-hand (back) rafters have extra bird-mouth notches in them; those three will go on the two end walls and the center wall, for a little extra support:

The rafters will be connected together with OSB gussets… some other day.

Today I built the floor of the new chicken coop.

Here I’m marking where the joists are to be attached on the two long rim joists:

Measuring corner-to-corner to check that it’s square:

The rim joists laid out:

All the joists in place:

A joist hanger:

Me carrying one of the plywood floor panels with the handy Gorilla Gripper:

Construction adhesive:

Floor in place and nailed down:

Covered against the anticipated rain:

This morning I started work on the new chicken coop, by figuring out exactly where to position it, and placing and leveling the concrete pier footings. They aren’t quite perfect yet, but pretty close.