How to what you ask? Well I have an old chicken house on the hill that my husband wants to tear down. It just looks like a shed. Old barn wood and meatal roof. I want to leave it and whimsy it up a bit. I like sort of old west or whatever. Any ideas please??

My first question is how recently have the chickens moved out? One property we bought had a chicken house which was a plus because we wanted to have chickens, but they are not the cleanest places sometimes. Depends what you want to use it for or if you only want to look at it from the outside. If you want to use the inside it will require very careful cleaning then perhaps whitewashing with a lime mix to clean.

To "decorate or embellish" the outside here are some ideas off the top of my head:
-attach a lariat or other old rope to the outside - could be in a twirly design
-hang or lean old wagon wheels
-build a boardwalk for a distance from the door
-hang old windows, horseshoes, halters, old metal washbasins, gold panning pans, other western/vintage memorabilia on the walls
-place a pair of old cowboy boots or gumboots by the door, plant in them if you must!
-find or make a silhouette of a cowboy and attach it to the wall-see attached pic
-attach a boot scraper near the door outside
-add a small deck or porch
-add shutters
-paint funky colors
-paint designs or pictures on the walls

Sounds like a fun project - please post pics when it's done!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: joyluck,

cowboy_silhouette.jpg (5 Kb, 34 downloads)

I agree with Joyluck Great ideas. I should do that to my DH man Shack ( big shed he built)

An online friend of mine has an old shed near her patio like that. She used lumber she salvaged from a porch they tore down to build a "porch" onto the side of the shed, and then built a large, rock-edged fish pond between the patio and the shed. She then built a small "dock" from the porch out over the pond. The porch is decorated with various "old stuff", and has comfy seating for relaxation.

Across the pathway to the porch, she just put in a "rusty" garden. She has planted all kinds of wildflowers in that area and placed various old, rusty objects around. She leaned an old rusty link spring against the house to display a few hanging rusty items, and to serve as a trellis.

It's really cool, and I'm anxious to see the rusty garden after the wildflowers grow and bloom.

When I was a kid, there was an old chicken house on our property. It had never seen a drop of paint or sealer. Weathered gray and sitting up on some blocks of limestone blasted out of the head of the holler behind our house, I thought it was the most wonderful piece of architecture. My imagination ran wild with stories about all the hens and chickens that it had sheltered. I wondered if it had once been fenced in and if Chaucer's Chanticleer ruled the roost.

My dad decided that he would have some hens and chickens and a rooster. (If you are from Appalachia, cockfighting was and still is very much part of the culture.) I woke up one night. It was so cold that the light beneath the full moon was actually blue. There was a coyote standing with its forefeet pressed to the chicken house door.

I never told my parents because I was not allowed out of bed, and awakening them for anything short of a house fire would have cost me big time.

My dad got more involved in cockfighting, built a large chicken house, and another building housing two dozen fly pens. Of course, my mother protested the extravagance, as we kids needed school supplies, shoes, clothes, and a chance for a future.

At last the old chicken house was vacant. Mom and I set up two saw horses and placed an old screen door on them. That's where we dried our onion harvest.

Years later. The old farm house and chicken house are long gone. There stands a strip mall. The only thing that remains are the memories.

Forgive me for rambling. I forgot to tell you that my mom planted a red rambling rose on the side of that old weathered chicken house. What a glorious event each year to observe the contrast of the weathered gray wood and those beautiful scarlet blossoms. The limestone blocks and the rambling rose held that little structure up for years.

Thank you for posting. It brought back memories.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: twelvepole,

We have a chicken house on our property too. It is approximately 10 x 12 and is painted red. Our future plans for it are to make it into a little summer house for just sitting out or when the grandkids want to have a little club house/sleepover. I want to put on a wooden deck walkway like you see in the westerns on the front, and a horse tie-up post (one section of a post and rail fence). Hang some heavy rope and a flat roof over the walkway with a few old chairs. That's it. Inside just a few coolers maybe a small table and a bunk bed area for the sleep overs.
This size "shed" makes really nice garden sheds or "get away" houses. Just add an old chair or two; and some "cabbage rose" style material for throw pillows, curtains, and then maybe one of those little 5" TV's and hang out there and read a book. They're great. Can you get electric out there? If not a few kerosene lanterns might help for relaxing evenings - as long as you're there while they're buring. They're just great hideaways!

Oh I love all these ideas and the story Thank you. I have most of the stuff in the barn. I am just not good at putting it togeather. My grandson would love the sleep over in there. I can see it from my bedroom so it would be fine. Knowing his grandpa though he would be right out there with them. Thanks again. Keep the ideas coming.