Hi Muckytyke,
Welcome to the site and congratulations on deciding to become a chicken keeper and join the mad bonkers world of chicken enthusiasts. If you haven't introduced yourself there's a welcome page you can use to tell everyone a bit about yourself. i expect Joy or another mod will be along soon to direct you there.
Also congratulations on starting off on the right foot by learning a little about the art of keeping before rushing out and buying an inappropriate house and the first birds that catch your eye.
There's a lot to learn and deciding on your system of husbandry is the starting point. It must suit the space you have available and the time you have to maintain the runs and house. If you have a labour intensive system or house design you will soon get fedup and neglect the routine cleaning tasks and your dreams of happy productive chickens wandering contentedly over a pristine lawn will quickly become a smelly insanitary eyesore with sickly chickens scratching about on fouled earth and producing poor quality eggs. So time spent now on learning and planning will payback many fold in the future.
Once you know how much space you have and whether you are going for a system of moveable arks which is great if there's plenty of grass and you just want a few birds ((less than 6) as you can keep the grass growing by rotating the run. For this you need an easily movable ark. Another system of rotating runs is to have a semi movable ark and two adjoining runs you can use a rotational system with one run resting while you use the other. You can use electric nets in a system of easily relocatable runs. If you don't have the room for rotating runs you can build a fixed run and there are lots of possiblities from fully enclosed cages to tunnel type runs connected to a fixed house. You will need to think about the floor material which will need regular cleaning and sanitising. All these different systems will dictate a different house design, for example if you want it to be movable, fixed etc.
The following links will give you some general tips on run and house design and in particular internal design a much misunderstood topic.
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=61242.msg711486#msg711486http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=56897.msg670192#msg670192http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=61068.msg709524#msg709524First you need to recognise that a chicken house is not a wendy house for small people with lounges, dining areas and bedrooms it's first and foremost a dry, warm and secure place to roost at night for chickens. In fact your birds should spend almost all of their daylight time in the run foraging. For this reason you should not keep feeders and drinkers in the house where they will get knocked over or spilled and encourage vermin and unsanitary conditions. Chickens don't eat or drink at night. The key things to include in the house are roosts were the chickens will spend the night. Ideally these should be a 'rack' of 4 to 6 perching bars about 50 - 70 mm wide rectangular with rounded edges. The space between the perches should be 50 to 70mm similarly. Underneath the perches should be a droppings area which the birds have no access to. This should be easily accessible for cleaning. Perches should be removable for cleaning. Ideally the house should have a completely flat floor and all fittings should be lift out for cleaning so the litter can be swept out without it being trapped in a corner. Apart from the perches the floor space can be minimal just to provide access to the perches and the nestboxes. There's no virtue in allowing lots of floor space which just encourages the birds to scrat about in and foul.
The other thing normally included in a house are nestboxes. It's not essential they should be in the house and external nestboxes are equally acceptable to the chickens, however most houses have them. Nestboxes ideally should be accessible to collect the eggs from outside. They should have shutters to close them at night to discourage roosting in them so they get fouled and need cleaning out each morning.
A house should suit the needs of the birds and make life easy for you. Get it wrong and the birds will roost on the floor among all the droppings or in their nestboxes which will also get fouled and be an insanitary location for the eggs. You will spend an unnecessary amount of time poo picking the house and cleaning out the nestboxes each day. Get it right and your work load is minimised the house will only need cleaning once every 2 to four weeks and the birds will have a clean sanitary environment without your constant attention. That's the aim anyway.
Don't worry about the glue the only thing to avoid is the flexible bathroom sealer type which the birds will pick out. Best to use waterproof PVA glue though. Don't use felt on the roof which is red mite heaven. The roof can be corrigated bitumen board such as Onduline which is great for the job and provides natural under roof ventilation (most important). Don't waste effort painting or treating the interior. A light softwood natural finish is fine.
Checkout Diatom which creates an unsuitable environment for red mite to colonise. Use an insecticide which has a residual effect if (when) you do get them.
Best wishes for your new hobby you'll soon be addicted.
HF