Among all the other bird housing areas of the farm, one in particular received priority when we started cleaning things up. The chicken coop was full of bird waste and just not sanitary to be around. Plus one of our first priorities was making everything Newfie proof and this was not an area we wanted to be battling her on all the time. With it being right across from the new kitchen, it also wasn’t really optimal to have it continue to be disgusting.
You can see the chicken coop to the left of this picture with the brown wooden slats and the bottles in front of it. Back in the day, this was used for coal storage according to some old photographs which were left behind by the previous owners.
Here’s what it looked like before we really started cleaning it up.
We tackled shoveling everything out on our first major clean-out weekend. Several of our friends were kind enough to volunteer to help us out. I don’t think they really knew what they were getting themselves into.
We took out everything from the inside and most of the stuff outside. We’re planning to put a bar shelf outside at about the same level the railing is at now. There’s been a bar there since at least the 1930’s and we figure we might as well try to preserve that. We pressure washed the interior and used the wet/dry vac on it as well. At this very moment it’s being used to store a few things which were around the courtyard and all the tools and extra materials from our contractors. They are supposed to take everything with them tomorrow so we’re definitely hoping that will be the case. At least that would be one less reason to keep the dog cooped up in the house while it’s nice and cold outside.
Ultimately we’d like to build a couch along the back wall and around the inside corner of the patio area. We found a really cool outdoor sofa and table combination but the price was not friendly at all. So we figure that one of these weekends when we have nothing better to do and have accomplished a whole lot of other projects, we’ll build platforms for the seating area and construct foam cushions. We are huge fans of grilling so this could be a nice place to relax while the fire is getting started, especially during the summer.
