How To Make A Birdhouse Out Of Wood With Your Own Hands: Options With Drawings And Diagrams + Photos And Videos

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-17 22:26

Preparing for spring in full swing: learning to make birdhouses

Every gardener knows that birds are not only living "decorations" of our garden, delighting us with their sonorous trills from spring to autumn. These cute feathered creatures help us all summer, protecting the plantings from pests and even small rodents. To lure the birds to you, you need to provide them with a place to stay. Therefore, it is worth training our skillful hands and learning how to make birdhouses out of wood.

Content

• 1 What you need to know before starting work

  1.1 Video: what to consider when making a birdhouse

• 2 Safety precautions

• 3 Instructions for making wooden bird houses with drawings and photos

  • 3.1 The simplest version with a pitched roof

    3.1.1 Video tutorial on making a simple birdhouse with a flat roof

  • 3.2 Birdhouse with a gable roof

  • 3.3 A log house that can be made without a diagram - a nest box

    3.3.1 Video tutorial: original do-it-yourself log birdhouse

• 4 A bit of design: decorating a house with wine corks

  4.1 Photo gallery: how else can you design a finished product

• 5 Nuances of fixing a birdhouse

  5.1 Video: we hang the birdhouse on the tree correctly

• 6 Video: how birdhouses are made in a carpentry workshop
• 7 Video: the simplest birdhouse with the hands of a student

What you need to know before starting work

It is good if you already have experience in joinery and carpentry work. In this case, making such a simple design as a birdhouse will not be difficult for you. But even if you are completely new to this business, it's okay: we will tell you in detail how to make models of varying complexity. In any case, you will need the following tools to work:

• ruler;
• a simple pencil with a soft lead;
• hacksaw;
• nails or screws;
• hammer or drill (screwdriver);
• drill of the required diameter to make holes;
• screwdriver;
• steel wire with a diameter of 1 mm;
• tow or clay;
• plane;
• sandpaper;
• glue;
• if necessary or at will - drying oil.

All these tools and materials should be at your fingertips while working, regardless of the level of complexity of the birdhouse being made.

Separately, it is worth talking about the wood from which you will build a bird house. We strongly advise against using:

• coniferous tree (pine boards, etc.);
• Chipboard;
• Fiberboard;
• plywood and any other similar compressed glued material.

Softwood boards, even after careful processing, continue to release resin. From this, the walls of the birdhouse will be sticky, which is very harmful and even destructive for both adult birds and chicks. Fiberboard and particleboard are known for emitting toxins during use that will not benefit birds. Plywood, seemingly the most convenient and inexpensive material, is also not suitable: it does not transmit sounds well, which is very important for ensuring safety.

The best wood for a birdhouse is deciduous, for example, birch, aspen, oak, linden.

The most suitable boards for a birdhouse are hardwood, 2 cm thick

Now let's talk about the size of the future birdhouse. Ornithologists argue that the design should be compact to accommodate, in addition to adults, only 3-4 chicks. In this case, all offspring will have enough warmth, attention and food to grow up healthy and strong. Otherwise, all chicks from the brood will be weak, sickly and incapable of long flights.

The standard, optimal sizes of a birdhouse (house for small birds) are as follows:

• height - 30 cm;
• bottom width - 13-15 cm;
• the diameter of the taphole is from 3.5 to 5 cm.

So, the tools and materials are ready, it's time to get down to business.

Video: what to consider when making a birdhouse

Safety engineering

Working with wood requires adherence to safety rules. Making even the simplest birdhouse, you can get hurt with a tool, drive a splinter into your finger. To prevent this from happening, remember the simple rules for joinery and carpentry:

1. It is advisable to wear comfortable and non-marking overalls, hide your hair under a beret. Thin or linen gloves are required, they will protect you from splinters and significantly soften the blow if you or your young assistant are not yet very good at using a hammer and often fall on your fingers with a swing.
2. If you have to saw and drill a lot, wear safety goggles to prevent small sawdust from getting into your eyes.
3. Tools such as a knife, hacksaw, saw, planer must be well sharpened.
4. All power tools used in the work (screwdriver, drill, power saw or jigsaw) must be in good working order, without damage. Do not allow moisture, chips or other contaminants to get onto electrical appliances.
5. Lay cutting tools with the blade down.
6. The hammer should be comfortable, with a suitable weight and a sufficiently long handle. Think about the tool in your hand, try to hammer in a couple of nails with it, and if everything turned out easily and naturally, you can continue to work with it. Be sure to check that the working part is well attached to the handle.

7. When hanging a finished birdhouse from a tree, be sure to use a ladder or stepladder. It is very good if you do this not alone, but in the company of friends, to insure each other.

   

   Set up a birdhouse with the whole company to insure each other

Instructions for making wooden bird houses with drawings and photos

Making bird shelters can be quite fun. It would seem that an ordinary birdhouse of a simple shape, what could be unusual in it? It turns out that bird houses can be made in several ways from different materials.

The simplest version with a pitched roof

Perhaps after renovation or construction, you have rectangular scraps of suitable boards. They are perfect for building a birdhouse, and you don't have to look for materials.

A simple birdhouse can be made from board scraps

We suggest you use a simple drawing of a birdhouse.

Drawing of a simple birdhouse with a pitched roof

Working process:

1. Take the prepared boards and outline all the elements with a pencil: bottom, lid, walls, according to their dimensions in the drawing. In our case, the bottom is a square with sides of 13 cm; the rear wall of the product is 4 cm lower than the front one to provide the roof with a slope for rainwater drainage; cuts are provided on the top of the side walls for a slope.

   

   Mark the boards according to the drawing and saw them into parts

2. Saw off each element in sequence so that all paired parts have the same dimensions. At this stage, you can trim the outer surfaces of the boards with a plane.

3. Make a round entrance hole in the front wall. You can make it rectangular, but the shape of a circle is preferable.

   

   Make the hole for the taphole not lower than 5 cm from the top edge

4. Now you need to collect the birdhouse. Fasten the facade and side walls with wood glue, and while it dries, fix the parts with nails or self-tapping screws. Next, in the same way, connect the bottom with the side and front walls. The back wall is glued and secured last.

5. It's roof time. It is better to make it removable to make it easier to clean up in the birdhouse: when the birds fly away to the warm regions for the winter, you will need to shake the contents out of the house and pour boiling water over it from the inside to get rid of parasites. Attach the smaller roof piece to the larger one with self-tapping screws.

   

   Assemble the birdhouse and install the roof

A simple, but at the same time convenient and reliable birdhouse is ready. It remains only to fix it in the chosen place. But we will talk about this separately: there are a lot of options for installing and fixing birdhouses.

Video tutorial on making a simple birdhouse with a flat roof

Gable Roof Birdhouse

Now, according to the same principle as in the previous paragraph, we will make the birdhouse a little more complicated. Its gable roof not only looks prettier, but also prevents rainwater and snow from trapping with even greater efficiency.

Gable roof better protects against snow and rain

The drawing below shows all part dimensions.

Drawing of a birdhouse with a gable roof

Working process:

1. Mark the boards and cut out the pieces, fitting them together to make sure that the dimensions are correct.

2. Saw out a round taphole on the front wall. File the tap hole with a file.

   

   Using a drill, make a notch in the facade of the birdhouse and file it

3. Rub each workpiece at the ends with sandpaper. Connect the walls to each other, while hammering in the nails with an indent from the edges to prevent the wood from splitting. For the fastening to be reliable, 3-4 nails at each side joint will be enough.
4. Fix the bottom at two points on each side. The roof does not need to be fixed, it must be removable.
5. Make a perch from a bar about 10 cm long and attach it to the front wall under the notch.
6. If there are large gaps in the bottom of the birdhouse, seal them with tow.

A gable birdhouse with a trapezoidal facade is called a titmouse

A log house that can be made without a diagram - a nest box

Not only flat boards can be used to build a birdhouse. There is such a Russian folk version of a bird's house, which is hollowed out from a cut of a log and is called a hollow. When harvesting firewood, you can easily saw off a piece of a round log of a suitable diameter, from which a good bird house will turn out.

You can make an interesting birdhouse from logs

Working process:

1. The diameter of the log should be no more than 30 cm, and the height should be about 40-50 cm. Using a saw, feather drill, or chisel, remove the core from the log, leaving the walls 3–4 cm thick.

   

   Remove the core from the log using a saw or chisel

2. From the same log, cut a circle about 5 cm thick. It will serve as the bottom of the birdhouse.
3. Using a drill, make a tap hole, attach a perch under it.

4. It's time to tackle the roof of the birdhouse. You can make it from a regular board by placing it on top of a hollow log or fixing it on self-tapping screws.

   

   Attach the bottom and roof to the birdhouse from circles cut from the same log

Video tutorial: original do-it-yourself log birdhouse

A bit of design: decorating a house with wine corks

It turns out that corks are suitable not only for closing wine bottles with them or used for decoration. They are great for decorating the walls of a birdhouse. The advantages of the material are undeniable:

• porous but strong structure protects well from moisture from the outside;
• serves for a long time;
• keeps warm well;

• the cork is very convenient and easy to handle.

  

  Wine corks are reliable and easy-to-use material

So, you will need:

• wine corks in the right amount;
• prepared frame for the birdhouse;
• sharp knife;
• hot glue gun;
• wooden twigs.

It is not recommended to use a screwdriver when working with such material. The sharp tips of the self-tapping screws can protrude outside the cork and injure birds. Therefore, we will use hot melt glue.

Working process:

1. First of all, you need to make the walls. Apply glue to whole plugs or cut edges of halved plugs and glue them. For 1 row, depending on the width of the wall, 2-3 plugs are required.

   

   Stick the plugs on the walls of the birdhouse in even rows, 2-3 pieces each

2. Place the corks on the glue to the sides of the birdhouse all the way to its roof. Where the frame structure is tapering, use plugs cut in half or even smaller. On the front of the birdhouse where the entrance is located, lay the center row vertically.

3. To decorate the roof, cut round pieces of corks up to 5 mm thick, and lay them like shingles.

   

   For the roof, cut the plugs into round pieces and install them like shingles

4. It remains only to decorate the sides of the roof and the joints of its doors with moss, twigs or pieces of cork. Wait for the glue to dry completely and hang the birdhouse in the garden.

   

   Wait for the glue to dry and hang the birdhouse in the garden

Photo gallery: how else can you design a finished product

A smiling birdhouse welcomes future residents

Let your kids decorate birdhouses using decoupage technique

You can arrange a birdhouse to look like a real house, with a window, a door and a fence

You can decorate the birdhouse with painting under Khokhloma

You can fold a birdhouse hut from small blocks of wood, as they say, without a single nail

A simple birdhouse, the frame of which is pasted over with corks, looks like a beehive from a distance

Painting with waterproof acrylic paints is a real art

Such is the brand name

You can completely paint the birdhouse from all sides

Roof tiles can also be made of thin boards

House for an angry bird

European design that your child can handle

Simple painting is one of the win-win options if it is done efficiently and accurately

The nuances of fixing a birdhouse

In securing a birdhouse, it is important to adhere to two rules:

1. It should be convenient for birds to approach the birdhouse and climb inside.
2. Natural obstacles must be respected for cats and other predators.

The best place to set up a birdhouse is a tall tree, roof of a house, or a pillar. When securing the house, slightly tilt it forward: this will provide additional protection for the chicks.

So, the ways to attach:

1. Drive in a medium-sized nail, hang a loop of wire over it, bend it and hammer it into the barrel so that the loop does not fall off. Place the birdhouse in this loop and align it.
2. You can nail the bird house with nails from the ends.
3. You can drive 4 nails into the post: 2 on the bottom and 2 on the top. Maintain a distance equal to the height of the birdhouse between the lower and upper ones. Carefully place the house in the gap and press it against the post.
4. It is better to simply screw the birdhouse onto a living tree with iron wire or rope. This can be done by nailing a wooden plank to the back of the house in advance, which will be attached to the trunk with a wire.

Do not forget that your manipulations can harm the trees. It may be better to use nails if you are attaching the birdhouse to a wooden pole.

The birdhouse can be attached to the tree with nails or wire

And the location of the birdhouse has its own nuances:

• Firstly, the structure must be located at a height of at least 3-4 meters.
• Secondly, the notch should be directed in the direction opposite to the direction of the winds that prevail in the area.
• And thirdly, do not fix the birdhouse in an area open to the sun: the rays will quickly heat the wood, and the birds inside the house will be uncomfortable.

If you are installing several bird houses, keep the distance between them from 50 cm or more. The fact is that starlings do not tolerate close proximity, especially with birds of other species.

When fixing several birdhouses in the same area, try to maintain a suitable distance between them so as not to scare away birds

Video: we hang the birdhouse on the tree correctly

Finally, we suggest watching some more inspiring videos.

Video: how birdhouses are made in a carpentry workshop

Video: the simplest birdhouse with the hands of a schoolboy

Building birdhouses is not only a useful activity for your garden, but also a pleasant pastime for the whole family. As you can see, making a bird house is not difficult at all, and even children can take part in this work with you. Please tell us in the comments which nesting boxes you think are the best for birds, what are the features of their manufacture. Good luck and easy work!