davepolaschek

The birdhouse I built for our yard last year was sized for house finches. This year, I wanted to build a birdhouse for the bluebirds that are already trying to nest.

As before, I used pallet wood, but the pieces I had on hand this year were smaller, so I needed to glue them up into wider boards.

Once the glue had dried, I picked one edge and planed that smooth and flat. Then I used that as a reference to mark the other three sides before cutting the pieces to size, and then finally planing the surfaces flat. I also drilled a hole in the front, and cut the corners off the bottom and left and right sides to provide ventilation.

Here are the measurements I used.

Then I glued and screwed everything together. I used a fancy hinge I had on hand. A friend pointed out that I could just as easily hinge one of the sides with a couple screws going into oversized holes. Next year!

Then I dug a hole in the yard, put in a post, and mounted the birdhouse to it.

I think it looks pretty good, and we can see it from our dining room table.

This morning, while we were eating breakfast, there was already a pair of bluebirds checking it out.

#birb #woodworking

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