Just so you  all know for sure—it's a labor of love.

I appreciate all of you, too.  Your're the greatest——

Thank you for your kind words——–

Well Jeannie B., Our coop is almost 10 years into the marriage–does that still qualify?  I will have to say that getting the coop built is not quite as stressful as remodeling the kitchen, but it is up there!  You would think those hens are getting a new condo!  LOL

Well, when we did the kitchen, we too had a ton of problems.  Asbestos in the floor tiles, under other layers of flooring, 2 with nails though them.  All of it had to come up though because of a leaky dishwasher had ruined the all plywood underneath them. 

Then, I had the bright idea of "I-will-just-peel-off-this-little-piece-of-paint-right-here",  but should have left it to hold in the lead paint.  Of course that was connected to the paint on the ceiling that was also lead paint. 

Hubby & I worked opposite shifts so we picked out our door handles and styles from catalogs–both of us had a colored stack of sticky notes, the only handles we agreed on were the ones we went with. 

The only thing that did go right was the leveling and installation of the counters and cupboards–Hubby works for his Mennonite dad and family business!! 

Just let me say that "move-in-condition"  only means that the previous owners have moved out (&probably have a landlord again).  The new owner is now free to move and stay in one room while they gut the whole house and start over. 

May 29th will be 10years of marriage!!  yippee & lots of to motivate me.

On our coop we used deck paint (waterproof) on the outside, and then just used some regular old white paint on the inside.  BAD MOVE.  If you don't want to repaint the inside of the coop every week, don't use white.  It looks so gross.  All that poop from the perching birds splattered down the walls…we were better off with the unfinished OSB because it CAMOFLAUGED the poop!    As for birds getting sick, never happened.  They don't peck at the wood or the paint.