Bird House Project

One of the things on our Home Spring Project List was to figure out what we wanted to do with our bird houses, which were on the backside of our garage near our patio. Check out a before photo here:

We were trying to determine whether we wanted to refinish the existing bird houses, or just build or buy new bird houses. After getting them down from the garage, we determined pretty quickly that new bird houses were the way to go. The old bird houses were made of really thin wood and had peeling paint, and they were stuffed to the brim with yucky nests. To be honest, I’m not sure how our little bird friends even got inside, I’m telling you, they were stuffed full! I was secretly hoping for a cute little nest inside, but that was not the case. Check it out: 

So, we knew at that point we wanted to build or buy bird houses. I took a trip to Lowes and Home Depot, and determined that the bird houses were way too expensive. Most were $15-$25 each, even for the simple wood houses, and they were pretty small.  We solicited the help of my dad since he had all the tools we would need, and he gladly accompanied me to the hardware store to check out our options for construction materials.

We decided to get simple cedar planks so that we wouldn’t have to do any painting, and got about 6 boards for around $10. We also got some heavy duty fencing screws that wouldn’t rust, especially since we were leaving them exposed with the cedar and they wouldn’t be painted. Those were another $10 (which we could definitely use for future projects), so the grand total of our materials for three houses was only $20. Nice!

My dad was a huge help, he did most the work and I mostly gave him design ideas. We used the old bird houses as a template, and built them together at my parents house one Saturday. We used a wood sealant to help keep the wood looking nice for years to come. Here’s a photo of us in progress, working on the bird houses. My biggest task was sanding them down and putting the sealant on the wood afterwards. 

Here is a shot of the inside of the bigger bird house. We made smaller nesting cubbies inside so that each bird would be able to nest separately, and then made holes for each of those cubbies.

 

Then, we had to wait for a good day to put them up. It seemed like every weekend it was rainy, so we waited and we waited, and waited some more. Finally, one week night at dusk when it was nice outside, we decided to just go for it and put these babies up.  My mom and dad came over, and he put them up with a bit of my help.

So, here is one more thing we’re crossing off our Spring Project List. Love that feeling!   

We also want to give an extra big shout out of THANKS to my dad, it’s his birthday today! Happy Birthday, Dad!  Thanks for all your help this past year! Love you!