Facelift

When we started with our livestock last year, we had two small houses for them to live in.  Ten chickens fit into a small coop, and two geese fit into a small house (yes, I house my geese and ducks).  This was plenty.  However, we were increasing the flock, and therefore needed to increase the housing.  The first house to build was a goose house.  It needed to be bigger to accommodate the increased number of geese, and then the smaller house could be used for the ducks, which are a smaller flock (both in size and number). 

I got to work on the goose house, and I learned from my many mistakes building the first small shelter last year.  This one turned out significantly better.  Sturdy, level, better planned out.  After fussing with it and painting it an outrageous color, it was done and I was very happy with it.

Don't mind the empty windowboxes--I'm not allowed to plant anything in them, even fake flowers.  The geese are offended by all that stuff, apparently, and they rip it all out with gusto.

Though I do not enjoy building things (oooh--that admission will probably get me disowned--sorry mom), I like making them look nice, and since I have to look at this house every day and I can see it from many places in the backyard, I want to look at something pretty.  So it's pretty.  But it made the other, older house look much, much worse.

To be fair, I had NO idea what I was doing when I built that other house--I hardly know what I'm doing now.  And I re-used a lot of things, including the plywood on the outside.  The house had a patched look from where all the plywood met (or didn't quite meet) up, and the roof went like this: / and the door went like that: \.  So no, none of it was level and it was really sad looking.  I have avoided taking pictures of it at all costs, and that's why you don't see any here today.

The house went on being sad looking, but I ignored it because it worked.  Ducks were housed, ducks were safe and dry, and that was all I needed.  I would have liked to have knocked it down and started over again, but that gets expensive and I still have more housing to build.  Yes, I knew how crappy it looked-it would be hard to miss.  And yes, it did bother me.  So yesterday I decided finally do something (reasonable) about it.  I decided to paint it and freshen it up.  Then I decided to try to hide the roof line that does this: /.  Then I got on a roll and went all crazy with a paint brush and some left over plywood and glass and a couple of tools and came up with this:

You can still see the sloping roofline if you look above the trim, but don't tell anyone I told you so.

It'll never grace the cover of a magazine, but it's definitely better.  Most importantly, though I do like things to look nice, they have to function, and this baby still functions beautifully.

Yeay for leftover supplies! 

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