Last year, when the slab was being poured, I ran out of space for all the concrete that the concreter had ordered. As usual, I had completely failed to anticipate this possibility so ran around like a scalded cat whacking in some posts and balancing some bits of wood to provide a receiving point in the future chook run. The idea was that the existing shed (which is balanced on some wheel inners, the odd Koppers log and whatever my predecessor found to hand) would be rolled onto this slab once it dried. Naturally, in my haste the area I shuttered off was far too small to receive the shed, so I was left with a nice lump of concrete sitting in the yard.

The concreter roughly smoothed it off for me, but it is far from level and certainly not square and is generally a bit of a disaster as slabs go - no reo either.

Now I have a broody hen, and although the chances of her bringing out any of the 15 eggs she is sitting on are remote (long story), if she does manage to achieve the impossible, I will have more chooks than I have perching space for.

Quilting having been cancelled today, I decided to take advantage of the of good weather to get weaving on constructing a shed on the slab.

There are various constraints - like my neighbour is firmly convinced my chooks' sole aim in life is to enter her yard, the materials are those derived from demolishing the lean-to and a fence, and I don't have a nail gun, but do not want to spend the rest of my life driving 4inch nails into seriously well seasoned hardwood so will be using screws instead. Not to mention the peculiarities of the slab. These impacted on the overall design.

I concluded a steeply sloping roof would preclude the possibility of hens flying up onto the roof and worrying the neighbour that they might then fly over the fence into her yard. It will also allow me to have sufficient height at the front to walk into the shed, and to re-use the door that came off the dunny shed when I demolished that. So, six feet at the front. The fence palings determined the height at the back as they will be used as cladding. They are four foot high, and so is that wall (or it will be when I build it). The side walls are also four foot long as they will have the palings applied as weatherboards. The front wall has a four foot infill section at the base and a two foot section of wire at the top. The nesting boxes are going on the side walls now, following a slight re-think about supports for them.

Because of the strong winds around here, I am not planning to fill the soffits or anything fancy like that as a bit of flow-through ventilation will hopefully stop the roof blowing off. As will the central joist and the battens I will attach to this and the side walls. And the roofing screws.

Today I located four 100x50mm pieces of timber and cut them to length for top and bottom plates. I spent a happy hour removing nails from these and marking them up, then cut rebates in them to house the studs. The reason for the rebates is that the longest screws I have to hand are 75 mm.

Then I went looking for bits of 35mm wood to use as studs and discovered I don't have any. (Isn't it odd that when I needed 50mm wood I couldn't find any, and now I don't need it, I can't find anything else ...)

So I will be re-cutting the housings to accommodate the 50mm wood Ithat I seem to have in ample supply. And I probably didn't really need three studs along the four foot wall either ... oh well.

This is presumably, a mini-go to whoa. Hopefully by the end of this three-day spell of fine weather I will at least have the frame up and bolted onto the slab.

Wish me luck - I am making this up as I go along ....

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