Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock
by Judy Pangman
from Storey Publishing, LLC
Bring your chickens home to roost in comfort and style! Whether you're keeping one hen in a small backyard or 1,000 hens in a large free-range pasture, you will find the perfect housing plan in this comprehensive handbook.
Author and farmer Judy Pangman combed the country to select these 45 plans for housing both laying hens and meat birds (chickens or turkeys). The coops range from fashionable backyard structures featured in the annual Seattle Tilth City Chickens Tour and the Mad City Chickens Tour in Madison, Wisconsin, to the large-scale, moveable structures Joel Salatin has fashioned for Polyface Farm in Virginia.
You'll also find plans for converting trailer frames, greenhouses, and backyard sheds; low-budget alternatives for working with found and recycled materials; and simple ways to make waterers, feeders, and nestboxes. A gallery of color photographs provides other creative ideas to get you going. With basic building skills, a little elbow grease, and this book of plans, you've got all you need to shelter your flock.
Building Kitchen Cabinets
by Udo Schmidt
from Taunton
Building instead of buying cabinets means not only cost savings but also better materials and a truly custom kitchen. This book shows anyone how to build a complete set of kitchen cabinets. Professional cabinetmaker Udo Schmidt covers the entire process, from preparing materials and selecting the right tools to finishing and installing hardware.
How to Build Animal Housing: 60 Plans for Coops, Hutches, Barns, Sheds, Pens, Nestboxes, Feeders, Stanchions, and Much More
by Carol Ekarius
from Storey Publishing, LLC
Cows and horses, donkeys and mules, sheep and goats, pigs and fowl, even llamas are living on small farms and in backyard barnyards throughout the United States. But how and where are these critters being housed?
Author Carol Ekarius knows. In How to Build Animal Housing, she provides dozens of plans--with illustrated, step-by-step instructions--for species-specific shelters that are well ventilated, safe, appropriate for the animals, appealing, convenient, and a solid value for their owners.
The book is essential reading for anyone interested in animal health and welfare. It includes complete plans and step-by-step, illustrated instructions for sheds, coops, hutches, multipurpose barns, and economical easy-to-build windbreaks and shade structures. Ekarius covers new high-tech, portable structures made of plastics and fabrics, such as hoop houses and hen spas, as well as more traditional alternatives, such as straw-bale structures. Always practical, she enumerates the advantages and disadvantages of ready-to-build kits and modular barnyard buildings and includes designs for watering systems, feeders, chutes, stanchions, and more--the essentials that help owners keep their animals healthy and happy.
Ekarius wisely emphasizes the importance of careful planning, choosing an appropriate housing site, and complying with local zoning regulations; pest control, basic housing maintenance, and insurance costs are also discussed. Real-world advice from farmers and veterinarians on the types of housing and facilities animals like best enliven the text throughout.
How to Build Animal Housing is the most comprehensive and useful guide of its kind. For small-scale farmers, hobby farmers, do-it-yourselfers, and animal lovers, this book is indispensable.
Drywall: Professional Techniques for Great Results
by Myron R. Ferguson
from Taunton
The most thorough and concise guide to hanging drywall available. This revised edition features new material, additional pages and color photographs. With more than 87,000 copies sold, Drywall is a mainstay of any comprehensive home-building library.
Trim Carpentry and Built-Ins (Build Like A Pro)
by Clayton Dekorne
from Taunton
Installing trim requires precision and know-how. This is the book that shows how to handle all common trim projects, including window and door casings, baseboards, wainscoting and crown molding -- and get professional results every time. This is a complete do-it-yourself book written by a professional carpenter and presented in a highly accessible format.
Graphic Guide to Frame Construction: Details for Builders and Designers (For Pros by Pros)
by Rob Thallon
from Taunton
Here for the first time is a complete visual handbook designed for architects, builders, students, and anyone else interested in wood-frame construction. Inside you'll find hundreds of meticulous drawings illustrating every detail you might ever want to know about when building wood, whether you're building basement walls or framing a chimney opening.
This wealth of visual information is mined from actual jobsites. Special attention is given throughout to durability and to energy efficiency.
Measuring, Marking, and Layout: A Builder's Guide
by John Carroll
from Taunton
"For Pros By Pros." You don't have to invest a fortune in space-age gadgetry to make accurate measurements, and you don't need advanced training in math to build complex houses. Author John Carroll provides dozens of beautifully simple techniques for highly accurate measuring, marking, and layout using a number of basic tools. Good habits of measuring and marking not only ensure high quality but also save materials and money and increase productivity. Measuring, Marking and Layout shows how to do the job right the first time. If you find it more enjoyable to end up with clean, professional-looking work than with sloppy work, Measuring, Marking Layout gives you what you want.
The common and sensible dictum among carpenters--"Measure twice, cut once"--is only the beginning for Carroll, who manages to take some very complex information and distill it into readable and understandable form. There are chapters devoted to laying out foundations, frames, roofs, stairs, masonry units, and finishing materials, and many little-known tricks of the trade and shortcuts. Carroll covers all the basics of tools and techniques, shows how to measure larger dimensions on projects while working alone, and shows that one needn't be a master mathematician to assure accuracy in projects, nor use space-age, high-tech equipment to achieve near-perfect results in a building project. From the simplest how-to project for a home handyperson to constructing an entire house, proper, accurate measurements are the very foundation of a successful result. Using common sense and care in measuring can save time, materials, and money on any home repair or construction plan. This is the book to tell you everything you need to know before you get started. --Mark A. Hetts
Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build
by David Stiles
from Gibbs Smith, Publisher
Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build shows how average "do-it-yourself" families can easily and affordably bring to life a "Hobbit's Treehouse," a "Pirate's Playhouse," or a "Crow's Nest" in their own backyards! There are a lot of books out there filled with enchanting photos of elaborate treehouses and playhouses built by professionals and costing tens of thousands to build. For the rest of us, there's bit of elbow grease, a lot of imagination, a trip to the hardware store-and Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build.
Backyard Idea Book: Outdoor Kitchens Fireplaces Sheds & Storage Play Spaces Pools & Spa (Idea Books)
by Lee Anne White
from Taunton
Much more than just lawns, the backyards of today make full use of this area's unlimited possibilities for lounging, dining, playing, and communing with nature. Outdoor kitchens make cooking a treat for the senses while backyard fireplaces create a natural gathering place for friends and family. Decks, patios and porches can be transformed into fully furnished outdoor rooms with floors, walls and ceilings. Backyard Idea Book helps readers unlock the extraordinary possibilities of this incredibly flexible area, and showcases a huge array of cutting-edge ideas for turning backyards into personal, satisfying spaces. New twists on old themes are offered, as well as some of the freshest ideas from the brightest talent in landscape design. An effective combination of stylistic concepts and hands-on advice helps readers select specific projects, while hundreds of color photos serve to inspire and delight.
Build Your Own Kitchen Cabinets (Popular Woodworking)
by Danny Proulx
from Popular Woodworking Books
Superbly detailed, this fully updated step-by-step guide walks readers through all the stages of planning, design, construction and installation of kitchen cabinets. It makes it all possible, even with only a few basic tools. And its practical approach anticipates readers' questions and concerns every step of the way. Danny Proulx covers:
Planning, cutting and assembly details for upper and lower cabinets
A range of cabinetry-from simple cabinets and custom appliance garages, to over-the- sink cupboards, lazy-Susan shelving and stemware storage
Practical information on kitchen design, material selection and tool shortcuts
Unique information on customizing cabinets, building strong cabinets quickly, combining traditional methods with European cabinetry techniques and hardware
Plus, a full-color gallery of kitchen designs
Danny Proulx opened his own custom kitchen-remodeling shop, Rideau Cabinets, in 1989. He is the author of Display Cases You Can Build, Build Your Own Home Office Furniture, Building More Classic Garden Furniture, Fast & Easy Technique for Building Modern Cabinetry and Smart Shelving & Storage Solutions. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.
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