Over the past two months, my partner Tyler and I have been working on a reallyyyy special project - transforming our old chicken coop into a tiny creative studio space for me to make art.
Here's the coop in all it's glory, on film from this past fall. To give some clarity, we've never had chickens in here (I'm allergic to eggs, the irony), but some owners in the past probably did. The second I saw this little coop though, I fell in love - especially with the little chicken sign on the front.
For quite some time, this chicken coop was filled with our cardboard, waiting to be dealt with. Our town doesn't have recycling, and we never wanted to trash it, but never took the time to figure out what to do with it. Well, we finally took the time and figured out that the neighboring town has a recycling center, spent about 4 hours (!!!) sorting and breaking down all the cardboard, and once the space was empty were able to get to work.
It started with tearing out the walls. The coop seemed to be built incredibly well, but given that I'd be working out there in Maine winters, we wanted to check out the insulation and make sure that there hadn't been any water leakage over the years. I also wanted to add a window, because an artist studio can alwaysss use more light, right?!
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This is mid-tearing down the walls. Tyler added the window (he's amazing), and we tore out the old insulation and added this newer, higher-grade (i.e., warmer) insulation. This part was a slog. For such a tiny space - the coop is 7ft by 7ft aka 49 square feet - it took much of two weekends to tear out the tape, find all the screws to remove the OSB (the wood covering the walls), remove the insulation, add in new insulation, and re-tape the walls. BUT I just know that in future winters it'll be worth it.
Once that was done, we got to the fun parts - adding in cedar planks for the walls and vinyl flooring to make it feel more like an actual room and less like a shed (or some might say, a coop). I really wanted the space to feel warm and cozy and inviting, so on nights where I have to trek out in the cold it's still a beautiful and wonderful artists space that I want to go spend time in. I really think the cedar planking helped with that - it also smells reallyyy good.
 
 
I could not believe how this space was shaping up, and the original plan was to wrap the cedar planking up onto the ceilings - but that would be a littleeee too lacking in color, I think. Tyler actually had the idea of looking at wallpaper for the ceiling, and you just will not believe what wallpaper I found and came up with.
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Chickens!!!! When the idea came to me to search for chicken wallpaper and I found this one, I realized - how could I not? Ugh it's just so good, and colorful, and just lovely. Tyler also cased the window and that really made the space start to feel complete. Minus a few finishing touches (quarter rounds, edge pieces) we were almost done with the build part of this project.
And here she is in all her glory!! Ahh I love this studio so much and I cannot wait to add in a desk and some cozy things to make it the most beautiful little creative space to make in.Â
Check out my full-length YouTube video on this project, I documented each step along the way, and stay tuned to see how this space comes along furnished. I promise to come back with an update.