DIY birdhouse made of wood: drawings, materials, decor and installation

Tags:Garden, With your own hands

There are indispensable attributes of a good garden: well-groomed fruit trees, trimmed shrubs, luxurious flower beds. And if you have all this, but there is a feeling that something is missing, listen. Are the birds singing pleasing to the ear? No? And what about without them! How to lure flooded singers to the site, and at the same time protect it from insects dangerous for planting? Today we will discuss how to make a do-it-yourself birdhouse out of wood. Drawings, materials, decor and installation, as well as many creative ideas on this topic in our material.

DIY birdhouse made of wood: materials, drawings, decor and installation

The little singer is also a diligent assistant in the garden

The content of the article

1 What to make a birdhouse
2 Birdhouse dimensions
3 How to make a birdhouse
4 How to install a birdhouse correctly
5 Outcome

What to make a birdhouse

First of all, let's deal with the concept of "birdhouse". This is a dwelling for small birds, made of wood or from scrap materials, with an entrance, a perch, a roof from the sun and rain, and, most importantly, a place for a cozy nest. Titmouses, fussy sparrows, flycatchers, wagtails and, of course, starlings can live in such an apartment.

All these birds in nature nest in the hollows of trees, so they will like the birdhouse.

What can you make a birdhouse with your own hands? Moreover, to build it in such a way that this house not only attracts birds, but also becomes a landmark and decoration of the garden? What are the birdhouse dimensions, drawing and design ideas?

The best materials for making a birdhouse

Basket

You can weave a jute rope birdhouse or use a ready-made small basket.You need to fix the roof on it to protect the nest from the sun and rain and carefully cut the entrance so as not to damage the supporting weaving axes.

If you have skills in needlework, you can use the macrame technique or crochet a basket

To give the product strength and shape, treat it with acrylic varnish and leave to dry, stuffed with polyethylene. The polyethylene film will easily separate from the walls after the product dries. Acrylic water-based varnish is safe for birds.

Such bird houses will harmoniously look complete with rattan or willow garden furniture.

Branches

After pruning trees and vines in the fall, leave thin twigs. You will have something to do in winter - this material can be used to make apartments for titmouses and sparrows.

You can use jute rope or small screws to fasten the branches.

Important! Using self-tapping screws, make sure that their sharp tips do not protrude into the socket. Otherwise, they hurt the birds.

Wood

Wood is an ideal material for making a birdhouse. It is closest to the natural living conditions of birds. You can make a house from planks or logs. For a birdhouse, an old stump, thick bark, trimmings of industrial wood are suitable.

Log poultry house - the closest option to natural habitat

Dried pumpkin

Place large bottle gourds in a dry, dark place for the winter. In the spring you will receive a dry vessel in which the seeds will rattle. A hole is cut out in the pumpkin and the dry entrails are scooped out through it with a spoon.

It is better to cover the pumpkin on top with acrylic varnish

Advice! A dry pumpkin is a rather fragile material; it is better to use a dremel with a small drill to cut the tap hole. You can use dental drills for this purpose; they will gently cut out a tap hole of any shape and size. If you cover the surface of a dried pumpkin with stain, and then use the same tool to make shallow patterns on the surface, you will get not just a birdhouse, but a real work of art.

The birds will love this accommodation. They will enthusiastically cleanse it of the remnants of dry pulp and bring out the chicks to your delight. The photo shows examples of such bird houses:

And now about the materials. which are not recommended for making a bird's apartment.

What materials should be discarded

First of all, consider materials that are not very suitable for this purpose:

Material	Picture	Description
Plastic		The transparent plastic will keep the birds safe and secure. The sun's rays will penetrate into the nest, and the chicks will be in sight of possible predators. In addition, plastic does not allow air to pass through well and, when heated in the sun, can release toxic substances. This material is more suitable for making a feeder.
Juice and milk packaging		Sparrows and titmouses, although small birds, will not be able to arrange a nest in a liter container of juice, there is too little space. They will fit in a two-liter box, but they will not bring out the chicks. The masonry will die from the foil inside the package. It will retain the heat of the sun, and the eggs will overheat, and the birds may die in the place with them. So, although it is tempting to use these materials at hand, it is better to abandon this idea.
Chipboard, plywood and fiberboard		It may seem strange, but these materials are also not the best choice. The fact is that formaldehyde resins are used in the manufacture of sheets. These are toxic compounds that can be detrimental to the health of the bird family. Plywood and fiberboard do not keep heat well, and particleboard is too heavy and rough material for a small house.

Features of manufacturing from different materials

Birdhouse made of wood

What you need to know to make a bird house out of wood with your own hands? Even if there is no experience in carpentry work, it does not matter. A student can cope with such a simple design.

Tools are useful for work:

ruler and pencil for marking;
saw, plane, hammer or screwdriver;
fasteners: self-tapping screws or ordinary small nails;
drill and drill for making holes (tap hole);
sandpaper, tow, wood glue.

Important! It is undesirable to use resinous coniferous wood to make a bird's nest. The resin will make the inside of the birdhouse sticky. The resin will stain the feathers and down of the chicks, from which the inhabitants of the house can seriously suffer.

The best material for work is oak, birch, linden or aspen wood.

To keep a microclimate comfortable for chicks in the nest, you need a board with a thickness of at least two centimeters

Note! The inner walls of the house do not need to be sanded to a smooth finish. Small roughness will help the birds to get out of the nest.

To make a birdhouse, you will need dimensional drawings. Usually an apartment for small birds has standard dimensions in centimeters: 30 (height) x 15 (width). The diameter of the tap hole is five to six centimeters.

Birdhouse, drawing and dimensions

House with a gable roof

Note!Each bird species has separate requirements for the size and construction of the house. If you want titmouses or wagtails to settle in the garden, find the corresponding blueprints.

A few tips for working with wood:

Wear gloves, they will keep your hands from accidental splinters and will soften the hammer blow if your hand shakes.

Use special goggles to protect your eyes

Sharpen the planer and hacksaw before starting work. Blunt tools will not only make the work harder, but also prevent you from carefully fitting parts.
Never saw or drill in your lap. Firstly, it is inconvenient, and secondly, it is fraught with serious injuries.
If you don't know how to make a birdhouse out of boards, choose a simple option - a nest box. For this purpose, a simple log of the required diameter and height is required.

With a chisel you need to hollow out the middle of the log, leaving the walls three centimeters thick

A drill with a pen attachment will help to facilitate the work. For the bottom, use a cut of the same log. The entrance can also be made with a drill. In the photo, examples of such work:

Cardboard birdhouse

Cardboard bird houses are a product for one season, no more, and they are more of a decorative function. For this purpose, it is better to use dense corrugated cardboard, such as on the postal parcels.

Making a cardboard house is much easier than tinkering with a tree.

The whole work will take a maximum of half an hour, and this process will become a fun and rewarding activity for children with parents.

Advice! To seal the walls of the house, they should be made milch or even triple. For this, the blanks are glued together with wallpaper paste or PVA.

The entrance in a cardboard house can be made square, so it's easier to cut cardboard. The side of the square is six centimeters. Holes are made on the back wall for the rope on which the house will be hung. Outside, the house can be wrapped with jute rope and covered with acrylic varnish. This technique will allow the structure to hold out for the season, despite the atmospheric humidity.

The roof of the cardboard house must be waterproof. It can be made from the same cardboard and covered with self-adhesive film.

Walls can also be covered with foil. The film must be positioned so that there is a centimeter overlap. This will prevent water from entering the joints.

Below is a template with dimensions for a cardboard birdhouse:

Cardboard house template

More details on how to make a cardboard nest with your own hands in the video:

Birdhouse made of paper

Paper bird houses are purely decorative items. They can be used for Easter home decoration or as gift wrapping. As a material, you can use scrap paper, stationery cardboard and colored sheets.

Decorate paper boxes with bright applications, rhinestones, feathers and stones.It is not difficult to find schemes for creating such decorative objects.

Master class on how to make paper birdhouses with your own hands:

Birdhouse from a bottle

Plastic is not the best material for making bird housing, but if there are no other options, take a five-liter bottle for drinking water for work.

Its dimensions are just right for a spacious birdhouse

A round hole should be cut in a plastic bottle. Sharp edges are best burned gently. They will melt a little, and it will be easier for the bird to hold onto the edge of the entrance. A long bolt is suitable for making a perch. It is secured with a screw and washer. The metal should not be heated in the sun, it must be carefully wrapped with a harsh thread or rope.

To make the inhabitants of the house feel comfortable, it should be painted outside with water-based paint. In two or even three layers so that the light does not penetrate inside.

Advice! Use a light color for this purpose, so the bottle will heat up less on hot days.

Make two holes in the bottle cap and thread a rope through them for fastening.

Another mounting option is through the holes on the side of the bottle opposite the tap hole. If you make four holes and thread two ropes, you can firmly tie the house to a tree trunk. It will not be swayed by the wind, as in the first mounting method.

Advice! For good ventilation in bird housing made of plastic, which you make with your own hands, you will need perforation of the walls. Small holes on the side walls are made with a hot knitting needle. Do not make too many holes, a dozen on each side is enough.

If the starlings like your design, they will bring the nest material themselves. You can make it easier for them by putting dry grass, pieces of cloth or small twigs inside.

Ideas on how to make birdhouses from plastic bottles, photo:

Plywood birdhouse

Plywood bird houses are very common in garden plots. The plywood's multi-layer structure makes the bird's shelter reliable and durable.

Advice!It is better to use moisture resistant plywood for work. Such a design will safely survive for more than one season.

To build a nest with your own hands, you will need wood glue, self-tapping screws and a jigsaw. How to make wall mountings? For this purpose, a frame is first made from small blocks.

If there is an old mailbox in the stock of the old barn, you're in luck. You can use its frame or just refine the appearance of the box and use paint or self-adhesive film

For the manufacture of structures of complex shapes, you can draw up your own drawings. The main thing is to observe the minimum dimensions necessary for a bird's dwelling.

To attach the house to the tree to the back wall, you need to screw the rail. It is better to do this in advance, before the final assembly of the parts.

Advice! If your garden trees are dear to you, do not nail the birdhouse. Better to screw it with a thick wire, placing rubber or other dense material under it. This will prevent the bark from being cut open and the plant will grow healthy.

Birdhouse out of the box

A simple and easy-to-implement idea - a bird house out of the box.

You can buy a suitable size box from a gift store or use shoe wrapping

There are many master classes on the network on how to make a nest out of the box with your own hands.The algorithm for constructing a birdhouse out of the box is simple. A notch is cut out in the cover, a perch is made from a long bolt. The installation site of the perch must be strengthened. This can be done with two pieces of durable plastic. They should be fixed on the outside and inside. To prevent the birds from tearing off the edges of the cardboard taphole ahead of time, they need to be strengthened with tape or a frame made of a plastic cover. After all these manipulations, the front of the house is firmly glued to the box.To strengthen the back wall, use a suitable piece of plywood: it can be glued with PVA glue.

Self-adhesive tape will help protect the cardboard box from rain. Don't forget to make a secure roof. It is better if its edges extend five to ten centimeters beyond the edges of the walls

Birdhouse options out of the box in the photo:

Related article:

DIY crafts for the garden: all new items. You, probably, too, like many site owners, want to know what you can do with your own hands for garden decor, because decorative decorations in the store are so expensive. In this review, we will tell and show what can be created from scrap materials.

Birdhouse dimensions

A lot has been said about the materials for the birdhouse. Now is the time to talk about drawings and dimensions. How to make a drawing correctly?

We make the bottom of the nest with a side of fifteen centimeters. This area will appeal to starlings. In a small cozy bird house, the height of the walls is from thirty to forty centimeters. The standard diameter of the hole in the birdhouse for the entrance according to GOST is six centimeters. Before the entrance, you need to provide a perch with a length of at least five centimeters.

The perch should be round and not thick. It will be more convenient for birds with small legs to stay on it.

The house needs to be built with a roof, it will protect the bird family from rain. The roof can have any view, but its edges should go beyond the level of the walls by at least five centimeters. Moreover, the roof should also protrude above the entrance to protect it from slanting rain.

In the photo there are examples of what the drawings of houses built with your own hands should be:

Now about how to build a dwelling for different types of birds.

Birdhouse dimensions for starlings

Starlings are not capricious birds. They willingly settle in small hollows, in cracks under the roof and even in burrows. So a self-made starling house is a luxury housing. In gratitude for such an apartment, the little singer will diligently delight your ears with flooded singing and follow your garden trees, saving them from leaf-eating insects. In a week, he is able to detect and eat about one and a half thousand beetle larvae, as well as caterpillars and other insects.

Drawing of a house for starlings:

Important! Pay particular attention to the size of the hole in the birdhouse and its location relative to the bottom. Too large a hole is undesirable, as the bird will not feel comfortable. The optimal diameter of the hole in the birdhouse for the starling is five centimeters, the height relative to the bottom is fifteen centimeters.

To prevent chicks from freezing on cool days, there should be no cracks and drafts in the house. The inside of the nesting site should not be slippery, the birds cling to the roughness with their paws.The perch for starlings is optional. They will do just fine without her.

Advice! It is better to make the roof of the house removable. So at the end of the season, you can clean the birdhouse and prepare it for the arrival of new residents.

A birdhouse made of wood can last a decade and a half, and with proper care and periodic repairs, even longer. The dwelling of birds must be periodically painted for preservation, and in natural tones, avoiding bright colors.

Painting work should be carried out in the off-season so that the smell of paint completely disappears by the arrival of birds.

Advice! In early spring, to draw the attention of birds to your site, hang a feeder. Birds will gladly settle next to the free dining room.

Titmouse: drawing and dimensions of correct designs

How to make a house for yellow-breasted tits? The shape of the house is the same as that of the birdhouse. The only difference is in size. The size of the birdhouse for tits is slightly smaller, by about a couple of centimeters in all respects.

The entrance for these small birds is also smaller - only three and a half centimeters in diameter

Drawings options for a small titmouse:

Note! In the little titmouse, sparrows, flycatchers and tiny redstarts can nest. Larger birds will not be attracted by the size of the house.

Apartments for birds should be located at a distance of at least fifteen meters from each other. If it is reduced, the birds will prefer other places to settle.

Important! The house is fixed in such a way that it has a light pendant towards the entrance. Slanting rain will not fall into the nest, and it will be easier for chicks to make their first flight.

House for a wagtail: drawing and dimensions, manufacturing features

The wagtail is an invaluable assistant in the garden. She runs around the landings and collects May beetles, caterpillars and other pests. With such a garden nurse, the harvest will at least double.

Consider how to make a do-it-yourself bird house. The wagtail differs from the usual birdhouse in shape and size. Instead of a perch, there is a balcony in it, and the house itself is stretched in length and less in height.

Wagtail Blueprint:

Previously, children made such houses in labor lessons. It's not difficult at all. For the floor, you need to prepare a board of 12 by 40 centimeters, for the walls - two pieces 14 by 30, one 12 by 140 and another 8x12. The roof should be wider than the bottom, 50 by 22 centimeters. It remains to fasten the wooden parts with self-tapping screws, and the wagtail is ready.

Note! Wagtails arrive in early spring when the ice drift begins. By this time, you need to place the house on outbuildings at a height of three meters.

How to make a birdhouse

Everyone can make a bird's apartment. You can do this task with your children. The birdhouse is made according to different schemes and using almost any material that can be found at home.

Birdhouse dimensions, drawing for starlings

The simplest drawing of a birdhouse with dimensions is with a sloping roof. We make such a bird house from scraps of commercial wood. The photo shows examples of such beautiful houses:

Algorithm of work:

it is necessary to mark on the board all the details of the future building;
cut all the details and process the outer walls of the house with a plane;
in the front of the birdhouse, a round or square notch is cut out not lower than five centimeters from the roof level. Such a gap will be sufficient for the bird, but will prevent the cat from destroying the nest unhindered;
to assemble parts of the house, woodworking PVA or small self-tapping screws are used. The last is the back wall. All connections must be free of gaps;
it is better to make the roof openable, so that in the off-season it is possible to clean the house. One part of the roof is fixed on a rubber band, and the simplest lock is installed on the second, so that crampons or a gust of strong wind will not knock over the small roof.

Advice! When the birds fly away to winter in warm regions, the nest should be cleaned of debris and doused with boiling water to destroy bird parasites. After that, a new bedding is laid in the birdhouse.

Video: how to build the simplest bird house with your own hands

How to build a birdhouse with your own hands: step by step instructions

The video described in detail how to properly make a birdhouse with your own hands. This simple design will brighten up any site. You can donate such a house to friends and neighbors, or donate to a kindergarten. It is possible to buy sets of birdhouses with your own hands, such sets are sold in garden supply stores. Each kit comes with detailed drawings and assembly diagrams detailing how to make a birdhouse.

And yet, it is much more interesting to solve the problem of how to make a birdhouse yourself. Considering the many original and unusual types of birdhouses, as well as photos that can be used for inspiration, you can get an original design. Just take a look at this vast expanse of beautiful decorative and applied ideas:

A few practical tips:

the edges of the taphole must be filed;
the end parts of the parts must be aligned with emery so that they fit snugly against each other;
if cracks do form, they should be sealed with tow. To prevent the birds from dragging tow for the nest, it should be treated with PVA before sealing the cracks;
at the top of the nest, near the roof, it is worth leaving the slots so that there is ventilation in the nest;
to protect the house from woodworm beetles and the appearance of fungus, treat the wooden parts of the house with special non-toxic compounds. The right thing to do would be to paint the bird's dwelling outside.

How to decorate a birdhouse with your own hands: ideas and photo examples

There are different opinions about whether a birdhouse can be painted with paints. Opponents of painting insist that the color of the house does not matter to birds, and the sharp aroma of enamel can not only scare away starlings, but also cause irreparable harm to their offspring. If you follow this logic, the houses can be of any color, since the birds do not care, and the paint should be water-based. It is odorless and completely safe. When deciding how to decorate a nest, pay attention to acrylic dyes. They are resistant to moisture and perfectly protect the wood from negative external influences. You can use pictures for children, abstract patterns or ornaments. In order for the paint to fit well, the outer parts of the structure should be leveled with a plane and sanded with emery.

Look at the photo of how well the starlings feel in a birdhouse with an unusual design:

Here are some more original ideas on how to color the bird houses:

You can decorate housing for titmouses and flycatchers in a different way. In addition to colorful patterns, appliqués, the use of decorative elements from cork and wood carvings will help to create beautiful birdhouses. Look at the photo of unusual birdhouses with a variety of designs:

How to install a birdhouse correctly

So, how to properly position the birdhouse relative to the cardinal points and how to fix the birdhouse to the tree? The main thing in this business is to determine the place in which the birds will feel safe. In nature, they suffer from furry and feathered predators, so they are very picky about choosing a place for breeding.

Think about your own convenience: it will be difficult and unsafe to install a house on top of a tall spruce, all the more, it will be regularly cleaned and repaired

Examine which way the seasonal winds blow. The house should be placed in a quiet place. Where should the birdhouse look? If north-westerly winds prevail on the site, it is better to turn the entrance to the southeast side.

The proper distance between the bird quarters is 15 - 25 meters. It is not advisable to place the house in the open sun, chicks will be hot. Make sure that there are no cornices or thick branches near the house, along which the cat can move.

How to attach birdhouses to a tree? It is better to use a bar for this purpose. The house is screwed to the bar, and that, in turn, is fixed to the table using plastic ties or thick wire. To maintain the integrity of the bark, rubber or thick cloth should be placed under the fasteners.

The mount must be very reliable, so that even strong gusts of wind do not rip it off.

Advice! Do not install the birdhouse alone, call an assistant. He will hand over the tools and hold the ladder.

Outcome

A birdhouse is not only a garden decoration, but also a means to lure useful birds to your site. They will catch beetles and caterpillars, and your beds will please you with a good harvest. Do-it-yourself birdhouses for birds, the drawings of which we have given in this material, are simple-to-make designs that can be made with children.

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