So as our team was growing and as our living space was not, we decided we needed to do something so that nobody would end up living on the porch (it’s actually quite nice on the porch—more ventilated than any of the rooms, just lacking a bit on privacy ;). After evaluating the different options, we decided to turn the chicken coop into a temporary housing arrangement for Brian & I, with the hopes of finishing it out in the future to make it a nice little guest room :)
Originally, this space was an aviary for exotic birds, then a little-used place for the baby chicks to hatch and stay until they grew up and were big enough to endure the pecking order with all the “mature” chickens (if a chicken is capable of being mature). Anyway. The chicks had all graduated to the other chicken coop thing, and this space was standing empty. We were able to “remodel” and move into our new place in just over a week’s time. With lots of help of course. Every family helped us get ready to move in.
- Arlen did the electrical, made our door, laid bricks and painted.
- Joel took time off of building his house and helped lay bricks and painted.
- Ana put our bed together and cleaned everything!!! Hosed the whole inside of the house out before we moved in, sprayed for termites and thoroughly cleaned out all the drawers and painted.
- Sonia provided us with the custom curtains (3 sheets, 2 tablecloths and an airplane blanket!) and covered other jobs for us so we could work outside on the house.
- This is by no means an exhaustive credit list, but just for you to get the idea of some of the work that was done.
Here’s a little bit of what the chicken coop looked like and what our house now looks like. My first pair of “big earrings” have a brief cameo and Brian enjoyed including a special effect in this little video. We’re not so embarrassed of this one as some others we have cringingly posted… :)
Our Chicken Coop Home from Brian Richardson on Vimeo.
Before…
Let me tell you, that was some nasty chicken wire in there. When it’s all rusty, it might as well be barbed wire. I was thankful I got my tetanus shot before we came :)
Brian’s first row of bricks!
Brian & Arlen (behind Brian) bricklaying. Notice Brian’s camera bag. It’s ALWAYS with him!
Hey, so this is oil-based paint. And the lid didn’t get hammered back on the can on all the way. And Dorian kind of pulled it over on himself. All of a sudden, the various other projects we were working on didn’t seem as important and we started dipping paintbrushes into the puddle of paint on the ground trying to salvage the paint and painting everything we could! We were racing the sun, and by the time we were done, it was dark and we were all very sticky. And tired. And hungry.
And we didn’t have any turpentine or kerosene…!
Brian had been working out at the rock house, so he didn’t have paint all over him. Being the only one with non-sticky hands, (he was able to take pictures—of course) he looked up online how to clean oil-based paint of off skin (without turpentine or kerosene which I didn’t really want to put on myself anyway, much less on a 2 year old). Cooking oil folks!! And maybe some salt or sugar for an exfoliant (depending if you have cuts on your hands or not—we used salt, and oh my, that stung!! Should have used sugar, but I didn’t think I had any cuts on my hands). But the oil thing worked out well :)
The day after that little misadventure, we put up the screen and some of the trim (we still need to add the trim on the bottom of the windows now that the cement is cured—that’s what is leaning against the side of the house).
Our room is 9 x 9 and just big enough for what we need :)
You can see the Big House right out the front—where our kitchen, bathroom and shower are. That dresser on the left fit thru the door with about half an inch to spare!
This is where our electricity connects :)
Anyway. This is a lovely temporary housing arrangement. It is so beautiful waking up in the morning to light streaming in and a panoramic view of beautiful trees and flowers outside. At night I can even see some stars from in bed and sometimes the moonlight shines in on us. Brian said I should put “sometimes the moon bathes us with its light.” Did you think that an ex-chicken coop could be so romantic? Haha!! I think I will be sad when we move out into a more permanent living situation. Or maybe I’ll be really happy to have our own bathroom again… Until then, we’re enjoying where we’re at :)
Domestically and nestingly yours,
Jocelyn<><
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