It’s Corey here again with another long-awaited DIY project for your coop!

We built these exact nesting boxes for each side of our coop. One set of boxes is exposed to the elements and therefore has a pitched roof with shingles for rain run off (this is the version we provide in the plans) and the other set is actually inside our left-side covered run, so it didn’t need any special roofing and we put a flat top on them instead to act as an additional storage shelf.

Our Nesting Box Dilemma

When it came time to add nesting boxes to each side of our existing coop structure, I’ll be honest with ya, I didn’t exactly know how to go about implementing them. I knew Erin wanted them to be aesthetically pleasing and have good craftsmanship. I also knew she wanted to be able to open them up from the outside of the coop to gather eggs without having to go inside and kneel down (like our previous chicken coops). I sat there searching on my computer for days and days trying to find the perfect design for our setup. I was looking for boxes that would not only fit the style of our coop, but also be functional, easy to access, and not be too complicated to build. After endless Google and Pinterest searches I was coming up empty and was quite frankly convinced that they didn’t exist. I wondered if other people were dealing with the same issues when converting a shed-like building into a working chicken coop.

It wasn’t long after that I decided to just build the dang things myself. Which of course meant they had to be designed first. Like most of our projects together, Erin (I call her E) and I collaborate as a team to bring a project to fruition. E usually provides the vision and says basically…here’s what I want them to look like and this is how I want them to function, and then it is up to me to figure out the HOW and then create and build out her vision.

These nesting boxes and the plans to build them are the product of what Erin and I came up with out of necessity for out flock. We hope that these building plans will help you create the chicken coop of your dreams.