Bird Houses

Whoa.
BIRD HOUSES! 

1st -. I'm not that handy thus SO and inviting family to help. 

2nd - . I LOVE Research. Thus prior to bird houses I looked up sooo much info on how to make a good or easy birdhouse!

I think prior to making bird house, you need to decide what bird you are making the house for. Different birds types need different size of houses, entryways, and to be hung at different heights above the ground...

This is the table I used to figure out dimensions:
http://www.wild-bird-watching.com/Building_Bird_Houses.html#sthash.EzjdCUO3.dpbs

I went for a 4x4 bottom size and a 6x6 bottom size for small birds and then a second style for larger ones. We have both here and with nearly 4 acres, I have enough space for multiple houses.

Now 4" boards are actually 3.5" and 6" boards are actually 5.5, so my 6-6 was really 7 by 5.5 and my 4x4 was 4x5.5... So, we'll see if the birds mind.

Now for House designs
Pointed Roof is what I did for the 6x6 style house, only because of the size. - https://teacherweb.com/IL/WoodlandMiddleSchool/MrSpataAPA/Birdhouse--Plan-2010.pdf

Slanted Roof  is what I used for the 4x4 house- http://www.birdwatching-bliss.com/bird-house-plans.html

Wood was cheap from the local menards and scrap around the the house... Nails we already had and we already have a table saw (because my husband loves projects).

Instead of this being just a me thing... I made it a family thing. It was fun event. I still remember making bird houses with my father when I was kid and now I get another memory of making them with him and my mother as an adult.

We went for making all the parts at once then gluing (gorrilla glue) and nailing (nail gun) after that,  once we had the first prototype down.

I highly recommend not making 9 bird houses at once without help of family or friends... Seriously it would have taken me days otherwise.

Also, please note that you don't glue and nail all the sides. On one side you'll use normal nails and make a swing door. The photo to the left shows me making a swing out of the back for the pointed-roof-style, and the photo above shows that I'm going to swing out the side of the slanted-roof-style. Which side you use to for swing / clean-outs, is up to you and how you want to design your bird house. :)

Also we drilled out the holes using drill press which we have. If you don't have a drill press, might need to look into how other people do it because I'm honestly not sure how to pull that off otherwise.

The day of making Bird Houses was a good day and all my houses turned out awesome (a few errors here and there, but that's part of the awesomeness, I swear!).  Honestly, I'm not going to give you step-by-step instructions because figuring it out is part of the fun.

Below is a handful of the houses we finished!