custom bird house

Bird houses are normally easy to make and anyone can make one in just a few hours. Mine may take me anywhere from a week to two depending on the complexity. When it comes to geometry and calculus forget it, I'm a total moron. I don't have a compound miter saw nor special calculators to help me figure out the angles, I use a square and figure out the angles with my eye and then cut by hand. Sometime it works out great while other times not. I try to stick with simple angles like 15°, 22.5°, 30°,45° and on occasion 35° and 40°. When it comes to any other angle, it might take me several attempts but usually I'll do it in two to three. I use scrap wood to make them.

Gable roofs are fairly easy to do and don't require much knowledge. A 45° angle can be used and the roof can be butted. The only thing one needs to know is one side of the roof needs to be a bit longer, the thickness of the wood one works with because the butted end is underneath the piece. Cut up roofs can be extremely challenging where several gables come together. Hip roofs give me the most problems but somehow I manage to muddle thru and things work out.

Putting in doors and windows along with trim is the most time consuming. They are not painted in. I actually cut some very thin strips of wood by hand, paint them and then glue them in place. I even add sidewalks, decks and chimneys out of wood.

Each piece that I do is more challenging than the previous due to their complexity. It's as if I'm learning from one to do on the next. I like making custom bird houses simply for the challenge. It makes me think and putting it along with my playing music my mind stays sharp and even my memory has become better than ever. I can remember things a lot easier these days than I could 20 years ago.

me holding my first custom bird house

It all started when an elderly neighbor, after seeing some of my outdoor furniture, asked me if I could build her a bird house. I told her after throwing a simple one together in a few hours that I'll make a more fancier one when I get done with my other woodworking projects. I got into doing the complex ones (miniatures) as I needed ideas to create them while waiting around to get my flugelhorn that would be in a playable state. I purchased one in late October, had to send it back, order another, send it back, order another. They were all defective. I didn't get a good one until a week before Christmas. It was just in time too as I was starting to get bored with building these miniatures. But it did keep my creativity in tact along with my memory.

three of my recent custom bird houses

I don't try to make them perfect nor are they a certain scale model. I want to keep a cartoon appearance to them.

the middle one from the previous pics showing the detail

The one below is a copy of one of my son's houses which I did from memory. It took  60+ hrs to create. I used saw dust to create a textured finish on the roof. All of the bhs has several coats of polyurethane for protection against the elements.

front side

back side of the house

 My final bird house (miniature) was a copy of a house I took my family on vacation to in the north woods of Michigan. I also did it from memory and it took about 80 hrs to complete. The challenge was the cut up roof and the fact that it was a 2 story house on a hill where the lower part of the house was exposed only on the back and sides.

front entrance

bird entrance

back entrance, deck and screen room

this masterpiece birdhouse below I created for a friend, was mostly made from both weather-beaten  lumber and discarded material I found next to a garbage can.

me and the bird house

front of bird house

back of bird house

the east side of the bird house where the entrance is for the birds

Whether birds actually use them may be another story as they can also be used for yard mooch (decoration).