today we're going to be building one of
these it's a birdhouse made out of main
Pine using different components
essentially wood and some neat tools
here it's got some neat features it's
got ventilation along the roof drains
along the bottom you pull this screw out
and this side door opens up we've got a
double entry hole to keep Predators out
nothing on the front to keep Predator
Predators out as well and this will be a
quick DIY on how to build
one this is the design for the bird
housee that we're building I found it on
the internet back in 2003 it's the
Chalet by real bird Homes at realbird
homes.com I don't know if that site
exists anymore but it pretty much has
the measurements of 7 in on the side 7
and 1/2 for the front and the back um 12
in along the roof although I actually
make mine 10 uh and it also has a 4 and
1/2 by five on the base as well and
we'll get it all lined up so we can just
cut out all our wood at
once so now I'm going to start marking
out my wood I set my tape measure along
here the first SL is at 7 in so I'm
going to mark that the second side is
also seven so I mark it at 14 then the
front's going to be 7 and2 in so we go
to 21 1/2 and make a mark and then the
roof actually comes out a 45° so what
I'm going to do is take my speed square
line it up
here and then go from that line and make
an X right
here swap my Square
over I can do the other corner
we'll save this piece cuz we've got to
do those 45 Cuts until this point we
pretty much just using the saw up and
down however we do have to make a 45°
cut to make the peak of our roof here so
in order to do that we're going to set
our saw over to
45° and what I'm going to do is line up
saw
up to cut down the center of the
line now that we've got that cut what
we'll do is it's easy enough just to
swing the saw
around and go ahead and cut down the
center of these other lines as well
don't throw these away we're going to
need
them the purposes of these little
triangles while we want to keep them is
when we put our hole in here for the
bird we're actually going to put this
piece in front there so we'll actually
have a hole in this piece and a hole in
that piece and we'll have them together
if you plan on using your bird house
instead of just having it you know to
paint it decoratively and keep it in the
home you'll probably need a backing
plate and this is how I actually mount
it to a tree or to a post or a building
it's essentially just another piece of
pine uh that's been narrowed a little
bit so you can't see it as much and it's
just a random length and I cut a 45 on
top and drill a hole in it
the
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cut that's why they call this a speed
square cuz it is fast and convenient
when you're not really being super
accurate and I'm just going to use our
saw and cut those little Nubs off so
we'll have a nice cute Point another
piece of cutting you want to do before
you put away your saw is actually on the
bottom of it you want to cut small
little 45° angles on each corner these
will act as drains and ventilation holes
for the bottom of the birdhouse next
part is figuring out what's which one's
the front which one's the back well it's
really easy to tell just take the
prettiest one this one's got a chip in
in a knot so we'll make this one the
back this one looks pretty solid so
we'll make it the
front U marking where the center of the
hole is is pretty easy I just kind of
eyeball it uh not quite center from
where the Peaks are I go down a little
bit just some and that's approximately
here so we'll go two and 3/4 as our
Center
which is right here and so now we'll
drill our hole or Center our hole right
there built this little jig here so it
sets itself in but now I can slide it in
under my drill and uh that way I'm Not
In Harm's Way
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almost burnt our way through that one
there this blit is really
dull but now we have hole
two so now we have all the components of
the bird housee made we have the front
and the back the double entry hole we
have the sides that are done the roof
the floor and our special outside
holding brace next sand everything get
everything uh all these edges cleaned up
all our pencil marks that might remain
I'm going to use a 220 and I'm pretty
much just going to sand everything nice
and smooth so I'm going to take a
circular saw right here I'm actually
going to just going to rough up this
Edge right here that'll give the birds a
little bit more traction to get a hold
of now we start with the construction of
the house we'll start with the front
part of the house here's the roughed up
inside we'll put this down first then
we'll take our sides and take a good
look at them and figure out you know
what's the pretty you know what side do
you want showing outside what's the
prettiest and that's the prettiest there
and on this one um it looks good either
way so we'll just put it like so and
same with the back of the house now we
got this knot cut here also got the that
knot right there so we'll we'll have it
look like this plus I got my drawing
there so now we have the basic block of
our house and we're going to be using
I'm going to be using uh essentially
just a bright finish nail they don't
really have much of a head on them we'll
counter sync them when we get them in uh
but it's pretty basic doesn't take a lot
this these houses aren't under a lot of
stress so it doesn't really take too too
much to do it and so our first one and
this is important so remember it we're
going to be doing the back left of the
house here so we're going to be doing
the side that's facing us so align the
panel as best you can with the
back just like so and start a nail up
top and just make sure everything's nice
and square you're primar concerned with
the bottom connection right here want to
make sure that's nice
that's on top like so take the nail make
sure it drives about in the middle of
the of the side here and just drive it
in again now don't do the other side
we're going to do something special when
we attach this side here but what we
want to do is flip it
over and continue you know locking in
this wall same as before making sure the
corner on the bottom corner is nice and
straight same with the side wall here
and once again we're going to be putting
in two Nails on each side why we wanted
to do this part last is because we're
going to make a hinge out of the two
nails that are used here this door is
going to actually have a nail here and
here and it's actually going to be able
to swing out and this will uh facilitate
being able to clean out the you know any
old debris or Nest that's in there you
want to make sure the door is lined up
just how you want it because we
hopefully want to go through the whole
way
that little hole there I'm going to just
take a sheetrock screw over probably
whats an inch and a half inch and a
quter you can now just easily screw that
in there now we're ready to put in the
bottom of the house I took the screw
back out so I can open this door you're
going to take the bottom of it with its
little four corners here slide it
in and we're only going to use three
nails to actually attach it in there
we're going to use one in the front one
in the side and one in the back so I've
got my two nails critical you want to
get this as level as you can with the
house and you want to make sure that the
hole here is perfect you don't want to
really have a rig here otherwise you've
got come in here with a rasp and clean
it out you really want this hole to just
be the texture of the wood you don't
want the birds getting caught in cuz the
chickes or whatever Birds you have
coming through here will come through
that hole quite a
bit so now we have our double entry in
there and it gives it a little bit of it
follows the roof line we've got our base
and all set so we've got our box pretty
much built now we just need to get the
roof on why this is kind of
critical is because it's very hard to to
hammer on this house at an angle we're
not exactly shooting down so we don't
have a good hammering so you you've kind
of just got to gauge it lightly before
you drive in your first
nail and we'll just have it override
like that once again another nail up
here I have it actually go into the
other piece of the roof and then one
nail back here and then the same over
here we have our backer board here and
it's got that that this little Sun spot
here so we'll put this in the back but
what we're going to do now is I'm going
to eyeball this one and you can eyeball
it pretty well and you're just going to
set it up so that you know we can have a
a top up
here and you're a couple inches off the
bottom
here and then just put two sheetrock
screws just like the one you did for the
front door we got to put a hole here so
once again I'm just going to eyeball it
and uh it's not hard to do just kind of
line up with the center of the house the
center of the peak and go
ahead and with that we're done we've got
the nose all set we've got the roof
attached we've got our side here going
to open up get all the access for we've
got that roughed up surface inside for
the little birds to be able to get out
uh and it's all set it can be finished
or can be used outside