Building a Birdhouse

I've been wanting to build a birdhouse with Joshua for awhile but I've been waiting to get some inexpensive pine from Home Depot to do it. They sell 1x12x8 pine for less than $10. Even though it is full of knots, it's great wood for simple kids projects. It is soft and easy to work with and will take paint well.

I used the plans from the book "The Kids' Building Workshop". The plans used cedar shakes but the pine was an easy substitute - I did have to trim up the roof a bit to get it to fit properly.

To start with, we rough cut the 1x12 in half, then ripped the half to get 2-1x6x4s. When working with Joshua in the workshop, I've got a milk crate that he stands on to watch when I am working with the jointer, tablesaw or mitresaw. I place it in a safe location then he stands on it until I am done with the tool. For these tools, his job is to turn on and off the dust collector before/after the tool is turned on.

After the rough cutting we used the planer to plane down one of the 1x6s to 1/2" for the roof, the other to 3/4" for the remainder of the pieces. Joshua is allowed to help with the planer, he feeds to pieces in and I catch them at the other side. We usually open up the garage door and let the chips fly, then it's easy to scoop them up and dump them in a garbage can when we are done.

Joshua went back on the milkcrate as I used the jointer to clean up one edge before heading to the tablesaw to rip the pieces to width. Next the mitre saw to cut out the individual pieces.

Over to the drill press, Joshua drilled out the hole for the entrance, then the small hole to hold the entrance perch. You can see in the video below about 1:40 what happens when you don't keep a good hold on the drill press handle - I think I need to get him a bit higher stool for the drill press.



Lastly I clamped the pieces together and started the nails, then Joshua finished them off. We screwed the bottom in so it is removable and now some lucky bird will soon have a nice new home to live in. We'll give the outside a coat or two of paint or stain before we hang this up.

This was the first birdhouse I've ever built - I'm pretty sure I'll be building plenty more. Though maybe we'll do a bat house next...