Chicken Coop Renovation: A Sibling Homestead Story
Quick Reference
- Owner: Tiffany Noone, Fern Wood Farms.
- Sibling co-builder: her brother Brandon.
- Project: two-phase chicken coop renovation, tied to National Siblings Day (April 10).
- Timeline: phase one built in about a month or two of weekend and evening work.
- Design priorities: ventilation, low-maintenance PVC feeders, repurposed materials, hanging bars, creative nesting boxes.
- Budget notes: $20 tire dust bath (Facebook Marketplace), $15 ReStore shelf converted into 7 nesting boxes.
- Follow-up phase: new rubber matting floor and a bottom-of-wall access door for easier bedding clean-out.
Fern Wood Farms owner Tiffany Noone and her brother Brandon spent a wet spring weekend gutting a tarp-covered chicken coop and rebuilding it in the spirit of National Siblings Day. The story below carries the original account word-for-word in spirit, alongside a plain-English coop-upgrade checklist any backyard flock keeper can copy. According to the Michigan State University Extension, ventilation and predator-proofing rank as the two most common design failures on hobby coops, so the renovation choices below are worth studying whether or not you have a sibling on the sledgehammer.
Fern Wood Farm Chicken Coop Renovation: A Special “Siblings Day” Celebration
As children, Tiffany and Brandon watched their carpenter father scale house roofs like a tightrope walker at a circus. He could make something out of nothing: a house built by his own two hands, a play set and sandbox for the kids, a window seat for the bedroom that sparked imagination. That childhood set the tone for every project they have shared since.
Tiffany still remembers going with him to jobs. He would set her up with a pile of books and snacks, plus a hammer, a little pile of wood scraps, and nails. When Brandon was old enough, he joined in, practicing hitting the nail without missing and building crooked little houses for squirrels. They were sad and haphazard little houses (sorry, squirrels), but they were also the beginning of a lifelong passion for building.
As they got older, they learned to build with their dad. He patiently showed them how to properly hang drywall, use power tools safely, and build projects around their family home, the home he and their mother dreamed up and he built. Eventually the projects evolved into work on their own houses.
When the family moved to their homestead in the woods, the house came with chickens. Naturally, Tiffany had zero chicken experience and was furiously googling “how to raise chickens” (the Almanac has a starter guide here). She had wanted to homestead eventually, but had not expected to be thrown in so fast. Since the last owners could not keep the birds, she and her family decided to wing it, no pun intended.
The new log cabin property came with a chicken coop, and Tiffany was thrilled until she saw it up close. The fencing around the coop was mismatched, falling-down pieces of wood held together by a hope, a dream, and some zip ties. The coop itself was in even worse shape. The ceiling was caving in. Wood hung carelessly with rusty nails waiting to give someone tetanus. The roof was covered in a cluster of blue and green tarps and some bungee cords. Less Better Homes and Gardens, more a scene from a murder podcast. It needed a major makeover.
Tiffany quickly became obsessed with chickens and was ready to grow her flock. For her birthday that year, she asked for help restoring the coop. Her dad and Brandon came over in the pouring rain and helped get the project started. Brandon and Tiffany discovered a passion for demo work and had the best time swinging the sledgehammer to take down the dilapidated chicken run. It was amazingly satisfying work.
They kept the core of the coop because it was in surprisingly good shape, then cleared out everything else. Tiffany remembers trudging around in the mud and the rain, watching her brother do the same without complaint, and thinking, “He must really love me. Not just anyone would do this.” She has never actually heard him complain about helping anyone. He is very much like their dad in that capacity: a selfless love, a desire to help others. And when the help includes chicken poop (not just the coop), that love shows even more.
They spent a couple months working on the coop as they had time. Brandon would finish work and come over in evenings or on a Saturday. Sometimes Tiffany would look out her window and he would already be out there stapling chicken wire when she did not even know he had come over. He knew this project mattered to her.
They constructed a new coop, a new door, new nesting boxes, and roosting bars. Tiffany tore the roof of the base coop down and they rebuilt a new roof for better ventilation and more space. The family was raised to be resourceful, so they raided her wood piles, yard sales, Craigslist, ReStore, and even her parents’ basement for supplies. It became a bit of a treasure hunt, which made the build a fun adventure.
Design Priorities Tiffany Built Into the Coop
When designing the finished coop, Tiffany worked to incorporate several features that make daily chicken keeping easier and safer for the flock.
- Good coop ventilation: the roof went a few feet higher for better air flow. Areas where the roof met the walls stayed open, covered with hardware cloth to keep predators out and air moving in.
- Low-maintenance food: PVC tubes for the feeders, anchored to the walls of the run, hold enough feed to last a few days and can be capped off at night to keep farm pests from also chowing down. They have held up for a few years now and work well.
- Repurposed materials: salvaging where they could and keeping the base of the coop intact kept costs down and the project as sustainable as possible. A big old tire filled with wood ash from the wood stove lives inside the run and serves as a dust bath for the chickens. Purchased for $20 off of Facebook Marketplace, it was an inexpensive way to make a durable, practical dust bath that stays nice and dry under the run roof. It also kept one less tire out of the landfill.
- Hanging bars: two large fallen branches and some bungee cord, hung from the ceiling, became a favorite hangout for the flock.
- Thinking outside the nesting boxes: Tiffany has used all sorts of things over the years: dressers and shelves, wooden milk crates, and cabinets. Creative nesting boxes are half the fun.
The coop was completed in about a month or two, with lots of work on the weekends and after-work evenings. Over the past five years, a few things have changed: a new door (the salvaged one broke in a bad windstorm) and a repaint from white to green. Tiffany actually brought one of her chicken eggs into the store to buy paint because she loved the green color so much.
Those Olive Eggers, Sapphire Gems, and Easter Eggers just make all her green dreams come true. She freely admits to a slight obsession with rainbow eggs. Egg color is the first priority when she chooses chicken breeds.
Phase Two: Refreshing the Inside of the Coop
This month, Brandon and Tiffany have been working on revamping the inside of the coop. After a few years, it needed a refresher. They went treasure hunting and converted a shelf found at ReStore into new nesting boxes. They cut parts of it to build 7 new boxes for the flock, and for $15, it felt like a reasonable investment.
They are also putting in new rubber matting flooring (scrap pieces from a friend’s company) and adding an access door at the bottom of the coop wall to easily scoop out old bedding. That single door should save a ton of time on cleaning. Each year of chicken keeping, they keep evolving the coop into a space that is more self-sufficient, healthy, and productive.
Bonding with a brother over homestead projects turns out to be its own quiet reward. Tiffany grew up working hard, but never in a farm environment. While Brandon has yet to embrace the homestead life fully (Tiffany is working on him), he has been really open to learning and helping on the property. She loves watching him crack up when a baby goat frolics like a pinball machine around the farm, his shock when he learns a new chicken fact, and how he is always willing to get his hands dirty.
For her birthday last year, Tiffany was so far behind on her flower beds that she said the only thing she wanted was help weeding. She was not actually expecting anyone to show up. Brandon and her whole family arrived with buckets and weeded every flower bed. That might not be your typical birthday present, but a fair few readers out there will recognize what an absolute gift it was to receive.
She is grateful to have her brother and to celebrate the milestones they have been able to share for National Siblings Day. Life is not always easy, and she cannot imagine going through it without her “little” brother. Their bond is unique. He has been there through their entire childhood, adolescence, married life, babies, and will likely be there longer than many of the older family members in their lives.
They share their family, their hopes and dreams, and their memories. It is a special relationship that combines a joint history of the past, the joys and challenges of the present, and hope for the future. Each part of that past, present, and future is interwoven into a beautiful quilt of a close family connection and a life well lived.
Regional Coop-Upgrade Notes for the U.S. and Canada
Tiffany’s Fern Wood Farms coop was rebuilt in a New England climate, where winter wind is the main threat. Coop design ideally shifts with the region. The following table pairs each USDA hardiness band with the coop feature most often flagged by county extension services and the Canadian Poultry Industry Council.
Whatever your zone, the two features Tiffany prioritized (elevated ventilation and repurposed hardware-cloth predator armoring) are near-universal upgrades. For a full checklist, the Poultry Industry Council and Penn State Extension both publish free small-flock housing guides.
Related Articles
- Celebrate National Siblings Day on April 10: join us by adding a patch to our quilt.
- Turn Your Shed Into a Chicken Coop
- Choosing the Right Chicken Coop for Your Flock
- Raising Backyard Chickens for Beginners
Join the Discussion
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Thinking of building one? We hope these tips helped.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Chicken Coop Renovations
How much does a chicken coop renovation cost?
Tiffany’s Fern Wood Farms build stayed low four figures partly because the family raided wood piles, yard sales, Craigslist, ReStore, and their parents’ basement. Two specific line items: a $20 used tire (Facebook Marketplace) turned into a dust bath, and a $15 ReStore shelf cut into 7 nesting boxes. Expect $300 to $2,000 for a full DIY chicken coop renovation depending on how much you salvage.
What is the most important design feature in a chicken coop renovation?
Ventilation. Michigan State University Extension repeatedly flags poor airflow as the most common backyard-coop failure. Tiffany raised her roof several feet and covered the openings where roof met wall with hardware cloth so air moves through without letting predators in.
Can a chicken coop be built entirely from repurposed materials?
Largely, yes, with two caveats. Any wood that touches chicken droppings should be untreated, and any hardware cloth used for predator armoring must be new; older salvaged mesh often has rust holes big enough for a raccoon paw. Everything else (shelves, doors, boxes, roosting bars, cabinets) is fair game.
How do you make DIY nesting boxes?
Tiffany’s flock has used dressers, shelves, wooden milk crates, and cabinets. The rule of thumb from the American Poultry Association is one box per 4 to 5 hens, roughly 12 by 12 by 12 inches, with a raised lip on the front to hold the bedding in place.
What is National Siblings Day and when is it?
National Siblings Day is April 10 every year, a U.S. observance recognizing brother-sister and sister-sister relationships. Tiffany and Brandon tied their coop renovation weekend to the day. Read more in the Farmers’ Almanac guide, Celebrate National Siblings Day on April 10.
Is chicken keeping worth the work?
For Tiffany, yes. Rainbow eggs from Olive Eggers, Sapphire Gems, and Easter Eggers, a coop that keeps getting better each year, and a family project that turned into a shared memory with her brother. As she puts it, life is not always easy, and it is a lot easier with the people who show up in the pouring rain to swing a sledgehammer with you.
Tiffany Noone
Tiffany lives with her family at @FernWoodsFarm in a log cabin in the woods where she and her husband homestead and raise chickens, ducks, geese, dairy goats, pigs, turkeys, rabbit and inquisitive little children. Her family spends much of their time growing and raising their own food, encouraging others to homestead and having a ridiculous list of about ten DIY projects happening at any one given time. Tiffany loves photography, baking pies, collecting rainbow eggs from her chickens, gardening and playing music with her husband. She also has a passion for writing and her work has been published in The Homesteader Magazine.
I like chickens and have always wanted my own. Where I live, I can’t have any, unless I can keep it as a house pet.