Farm Museum Projects #1 Chicken coupe door

I am a volunteer at the local farm museum, and the director started talking to me about the chicken coupe. She has a 28 inch wide wheel barrel, and her coupe door was made 24 inches wide, causing her considerable consternation and back pain. She asked for a new door.

So people like to feed the chickens, but the only way to do that is to pull the wire back. I thought, new door, time for a feeder slot. And I also thought, I don’t want to be trying to hang this thing in the grass with no electrical hookup around me, I want to make a door jam for it, so I can just push the whole thing in at install time. Also I felt as if I really wanted old timey suffolk style latches for the hardware.

A previous barn build (by some really great contractors) had left some cypus wood battons, and I really thought they were the material for me. I made the frame out of wafer the two together to form stiles, and for the rails I left tenons on and dado-ed out material for a nice fit.

So the kick plate is a extra problem, because, since this is an actual work area, it is gonna get kicked and hit out of the way, by all sorts of items, like the fronts of wheel barrels and work boots, for starters.

A quick glue up of two 2 by sixes and one pressure treated 2 by eight got me near to a kick plate. I just cut a rabbet on either side, and I was good to go.

Once the frame was glued up, I held each rail/stile joint together with three dowels. And liberally put dowels into the kick plate. I used my pin-nailer to install trim and the feeder slot. And painted the whole thing with hand made soap paint.

Once it was time to install the hardware, I deviated and made my own door pull out of red oak that was laying in the yard. The pull would still have to work with the rest of the big box store latch hardware I have, but for me, a hand carved pull and a door fabricated without screws just says farm door to me.