A collection of projects related to our workshop.
July 2017
For now, there’s just one: repairing a burst pipe behind the shower in the shop bathroom:
We plan to remodel that bathroom sometime, and finish off the back of the shop. It’s a big and low-priority project, though, so who knows when we’ll get around to it.
A collection of various construction projects related to beekeeping.
This summary doesn’t include beehive inspections, just things like building beehive stands and such. See the bees category for other beehive posts.
April 2017
Before we could get bees, we needed somewhere for them to live. So we got a Flow hive, and I started to assemble it:
And finished assembling that and a second more traditional hive:
Hives can’t just sit on the ground, so I also built a hive stand:
Then we could get the bees:
March 2018
Over time, we expanded our apiary, so I built a second beehive stand:
April 2018
For more bees:
July 2018
Adding starter strips to a bunch of frames:
A collection of various plumbing projects around the homestead.
Each post tends to be a different project, but it made sense to collect them under one project heading.
There were many projects before the first one mentioned on the blog. I might go back and document earlier ones someday, but for now I’ll start with ones already posted.
May 2017
While certainly not my first plumbing project, the first one that was posted about on the blog was repairing a frozen tap by the pond:
June 2017
A minor project was to add irrigation tubing to some new trees:
July 2017
Another was to add extra taps for the orchard and cherry trees around the white gazebo:
I intercepted some existing pipes to replace a junction by the old coop and add extra taps by the new chicken coop:
May 2018
A minor repair and other maintenance when turning on the garden water after winter:
Adding irrigation for new trees in the field:
November 2018
Moving a tap for the berry cage:
April 2019
Another post-winter repair, of the chicken coop taps:
March 2020
Another year, another repair… or repairs, to the deck misters and a flowerbed tap, plus a tweak to the small pond tap:
April 2020
As part of the greenhouse project, I installed pipes and taps into the greenhouse for irrigation (see that project for more on the irrigation parts):
July 2020
I added a tap to the garden east of the fountain, that previously didn’t have a tap:
More will be added in the future!
A project to build the fence and netting roof of an outdoor run for the new chicken coop.
This is a summary of the project, with links to the individual blog posts about it.
July 2017
The chicken run was constructed shortly after the chicken coop was completed, while the chicks were living in it, but too young to go outside.
The project started, unsurprisingly, with a run to Home Depot to get materials (click the link to see the original blog post):
August 2017
I used my earth auger to dig holes for the posts, then started framing the fencing:
I did more fencing:
Traditionally access holes in fences are filled with gates, so I made some; a single gate for normal access, plus a double gate for maintenance access:
Once the framing was done, I started attaching the welded wire fencing:
With the fencing in place, the chickens could go outside:
September 2017
I made a grazing frame for the run, which is a low box covered with hardware cloth, for grass to grow without being dug up by chickens:
October 2017
I also added some roosts to the run:
To prevent predator birds from attacking the chickens, I wanted a covered run. Not sure I would bother with that again, but it seemed a good idea at the time. So I added extra poles and beams to support a netting roof:
The run was basically complete at that point.
November 2017
Later I did some repairs to the grazing box:
February 2018
The netting tends to rip when it is laden with snow:
May 2020
I replaced the netting roof with knotted rope netting:
A big project to build a new chicken coop.
This is a summary of the project, with links to the individual blog posts about it.
February 2017
The second ever post on the Yellow Cottage Homestead blog included some sketches drawn in the excellent Linea iOS app of some of my early designs for a new chicken coop (click the link to see the original blog post):
I followed that up with refined plans:
March 2017
In March, things got underway, starting with a Home Depot order for delivery:
Which arrived a few days later:
And was organized:
Then it was time to begin building. Starting with the concrete footings:
Then the floor:
What comes after the floor? The roof, of course! No, seriously (see that post for why):
April 2017
Since I was building this while the weather was still rather dodgy, I got a canopy to cover the construction, keeping the wood, tools, and me dry:
That helped while I completed the roof rafters:
But it was too good to be true; the canopy was soon taken out by a wind storm:
Oh well, onward; I started on the front wall:
Then the back wall:
With the wall framing done, I moved on to mounting the rafters:
The roof extends beyond the walls on the ends, so I added sub-fascia and barge rafters for that:
Then time to start sheathing the walls with OSB sheets:
The OSB was then wrapped with Tyvek, to make it waterproof:
A minor addition of an awning over the pop door:
May 2017
We got the chicks while I was working on the roof, so the pressure was on to finish, so they could move in:
Next was making custom doors and windows:
Adding trim around the windows and doors:
June 2017
Plus finishing off the awning:
Soffits are the underside of roof eaves; like the rest of the coop, I over-did them, too:
Jenn helped by painting the coop, starting with the doors and windows:
A fun addition: window planter boxes:
Painting window and door frames:
Installing the poop door and a ground barrier:
More painting, weathervane, etc:
I then started on the siding, using HardiPlank lap siding:
Painting siding and installing windows:
Mounting the vents and windows:
Installing the center door, roosts, and light; yes, the coop has a chandelier:
July 2017
The coop is basically done at this point, so the chicks were able to move in:
But I wasn’t done with the construction. Next was a feeder tube and waterer:
Jenn planted the window boxes, and I added extra window hardware:
The feeder tube didn’t work very well, so I tweaked it:
August 2017
I’ll have a separate post summarizing building the chicken run, but a coop-related part of that was installing the pop door opener:
I didn’t make the nesting boxes when building the coop, other than doors to where they would be, since the chicks don’t start laying till about 18 months old. But one of the final steps for the coop was to build the nesting boxes:
September 2017
Then we finished the nesting boxes with nice curtains:
I also built a poop tray to go under the roosts, to make cleaning the coop easier:
October 2017
Another addition to the coop was an oyster shell and grit dispenser:
December 2017
As the weather got colder, I added a heated waterer for the chickens. The heating unit comes on when it’s cold, heating up the water just enough to prevent freezing:
Some nice Christmas gifts: an egg carton stamp and coop sign:
February 2018
Amongst other snowy pictures, a shot of the chicken coop covered in snow:
March 2018
September 2018
A nice six-page spread in Backyard Poultry magazine on my coop:
May 2020
A later modification, I added a shelf above the door for additional storage:
Phew! That was not only one of my first construction projects, it was my biggest, at least as of writing this summary.
A simple project to build three potato planters.
This is a summary of the project, with links to the individual blog posts about it; only three in this case.
March 2017
I designed the planters based on searches for similar projects, drawing it in the excellent Linea iOS app. Here’s my initial design (click the link to see the original blog post).
I then refined the design:
And built three of them (click that link to see more commentary and photos of the building process):
