Chicken Coop Tour No. 20: Seven Gorgeous Coops Built with The Garden Loft Plans

So you want to build your own large walk-in backyard chicken coop, but don’t know where to start? Here are seven spectacular DIY coops built using The Garden Loft large walk-in coop plans. As you scroll, think about which features, details, and modifications are your favorites. Then share a note in the comments to let their creators know!

Coop 1: Bryna and Eric’s Garden Loft “Fortress,” Eldorado Hills, California

Building a chicken coop is about ease and looks, for sure. But Bryna and Eric were also drawn to The Garden Loft for how well it would protect against wildlife — and their wildly curious pets. I love what they’ve done with the coop design, adding sconces, trim, and external nest boxes.

We plugged away on it slowly but surely, tweaking a few design details to be ideal for us. We have some happy hens now. Cougars, raccoons, and coyotes are abundant in our area, but the hens are safe in their fortress. The dogs have definitely tried hard to get in. . . and failed.  

Coop 2: Nathan and Michelle’s “Chickneyland” Coop, Port Orchard, Washington

Nathan and Michelle took their time building The Garden Loft, doing the prefab in their garage before heading outside to start assembly. I love their color choices, decorations, and roll-down shade — you could project Fantasia on to it for movie night!

We absolutely love this thing! Your plans were perfect and easy to follow. Our chickens have one heck of an upgrade to “Chickneyland!”  

P.S. We discovered that with our chickens, the ceiling panels WEREN’T optional 😬 Someone ended up in a tree the first night and wouldn’t come down til morning. . . . The coop now has ceiling panels and is completely enclosed! 😛 

Coop 3: Jack and Nancy’s Secure “Hen Den” Built with The Garden Loft Plans, Pottsboro, Texas

Jack and Nancy’s previous coop was invaded by a raccoon, killing all the hens and critically wounding their roo, Rueben “Rooster” Cogburn. After nursing him back to health, they purchased several new hens and got busy building a coop that would keep their new flock safe.

Got it done! Not bad for a pair of 74-year-young folks. The plans were perfect and very easy to understand. The end product exceeded our expectations.

Nancy had fun decorating, as you can see. She’s planning a ladies’ luncheon around the coop for after the hot Texas weather has moderated. 🙂

Coop 4: Jen’s “Neighborly Nest” Garden Loft

Late 2020 was a painful, isolating time for most everyone. But even during the pandemic, people found ways to build something positive for themselves and their community. For Jen and her spouse, that was a chicken coop. “We met an endless parade of neighbors while building our coop,” she says. “And now that we’ve finished, we’ve had an equally endless parade of neighborhood children visiting our chickens.”

We made a few modifications, like using a metal roof. We also elevated it for drainage, covered the entire bottom with hardware cloth, and added some ladders here and there as our Serama bantam frizzle can’t fly up to any of the roosts.

To paint the hardware cloth black, I applied Rustoleum with a small roller. It’s almost miraculous what a difference it makes. Human eyes are strange, and I guess they get really confused by the reflection of light off of the silver hardware cloth; whereas black lets us see right through. It took about 30 minutes to do.

My spouse and I learned so much and developed so much confidence from following your plan. We’re now ready to tackle other building projects around the house that we’d previously been intending to outsource.

Thank you for all the swift responses, the advice. . . and for helping us connect with so many different communities — both online and in our neighborhood!

Coop 5: Nicholas’s Texas “Palais des Poulets” Built with The Garden Loft Plans

Despite some site challenges and the very real Texas heat, Nicholas built this beautiful, secure home for his young flock using The Garden Loft plans. Enjoy a video tour below and watch as his flock ventures out of the henhouse for the first time!

Coop 6: Sean’s Gulf Coast Garden Loft with Garden Run Extensions, Fairhope, Alabama

Sean used two sets of our chicken coop and run plans plus an optional hardware kit to build The Garden Loft and a few attached Garden Run extensions. The variety of this habitat helps his chickens stay active and, of course, protected.

I did the pop door in the quarter-height module leading into big coop so that when we need to isolate a chicken — or in this case let a broody mom raise babies in piece — we can separate the chickens, but the main flock still can see and smell each other.

And I built the half-height run module with several roosts and may add a chicken swing with just a sand bottom because I suspect it will get wet more often. The top we use as an herb garden for mint, sage, parsley, thyme, etc. that we may share with the chicks sometime. I used a non-toxic paint in garden box. 

Coop 7: John and Susan’s Garden Loft on Trotting Cat Farm, Orting, Washington

John and Suz worked a little bit each weekend over a few months to build this masterpiece of a chicken coop. They started with our coop plans and optional chicken coop hardware kit and added some really thoughtful details.

For perspective, we’re in our sixties, with a lot of DIY experience, but have never built something this large. Your plans are EXCELLENT. We also found your hardware kit saved us hours of searching for the right hardware and was worth every penny. Some mods we did: 

• Added an automatic door to the run to access free range
• Used barrel latches on the henhouse double doors instead of hook-and-eye
• Installed the run roosts using joist hardware to make for easy in and out for cleaning 
• Decided not to overhang the roofing on the windward side to avoid catching south winds (we’ll see if this was wise) 
• Installed a small ladder inside the coop to access the roosts 
• Used a 4-hole galvanized nest box instead of building our own 

The coop faces towards our house so we can chicken-watch and, again, minimize wind issues. The hardest part was the pier foundation, which we did in the freezing cold. We live between two rivers, and our water table is high, so sloshing around in freezing mud was pretty brutal.

Thank you again for such wonderful plans! So so pleased with this whole experience.  

A big thank you to all the DIY chicken coop builders and chicken fanciers who shared their photos, videos, and ideas for this virtual chicken coop tour. Like what they’ve done with their backyard coops? Have a personal favorite? Let us know with a comment below. 

You can browse all of our Make It Your Own coop profiles here for more examples of large backyard chicken coops. If you’re looking to build your own large walk-in backyard chicken coop with The Garden Loft plans, those are available here.