Weekend Project: Bird Houses and Bird Feeders
A house for your favorite canine can make a great weekend project if you’re handy with a hammer, saw, drill and can read a set of blueprints. Even the most basic kennel/crates require a little DIY know-how and a few power tools. But a bird house is another story – and almost anyone can build an avian apartment for the orioles, robins and wrens in your neighborhood who need a place to hang out!
Bird Kitchens, Castles and Condos
Maybe that wasn’t on your radar, but building a bird house in a weekend is totally doable, and these inventive Pinterest pics will inspire and maybe even motivate you to fashion a habitue for your feathered friends! With penny roofs and second floors, fieldstone facades and miniature Hobbit mossy exteriors, the birders, builders and creatives have outdone themselves with free-standing, hanging and mounted inspiration.
Dream a Little Bigger has plans for basic bird houses, and a nice combo condo/planter, perfect for both bird lovers and gardeners who like to dress up everything with flowers. Allison, one of the craftiest bloggers on the internet has over 1,000 tutorials, and bird houses are just one section!
Birdwatching Bliss offers up free house plans for bluebirds, Purple Martins, wrens, ducks and more, with guidelines about the dangers of perches and warnings about proper placement so predators can’t get to the birds.
Repurposed and Reimagined
You’ll find free bird house plans at The Spruce with a nod to the basics of birdhouse building, as well as links to a variety of little handmade bird homes. One A-frame at Martha Stewart’s site, seems easy enough to include the kids as assistant builders. And this old clock turned birdhouse proves that you can make one out of just about anything!
Blogger Sarah at Sadies Seasongoods upcycles and repurposes all sorts of things for birdhouses including dollhouses tissue box covers! Sarah also has DIY ideas for bird feeders, bird baths, to name a few.
Feed the Birds
Speaking of bird feeders, we found a few of those, too. If you’re fascinated by hummingbirds, (and frankly, who isn’t?) Robbie, at Robbie and Gary Gardening Easy’s Youtube channel, shows you how to make hummingbird feeders. She shares her recipe for nectar (1/4 cups cane sugar mixed with 1 cup water) and lots of video of hummingbirds! She uses peanut butter lids and jars and it’s nothing short of mesmerizing to watch the birds hover and flock to her feeders. She says the birds like the DIY kind better than the store-bought ones she had hanging around, and when they’re all empty of nectar, the birds let her know!
Fresh Patio. If you love the sounds of singing birds, a simple window bird feeder made of scrap wood and adhered to the window with suction cups keep the bird close enough to watch and keep squirrels from eating your seed.
And from Home Talk, Elizabeth Jones shows you how to turn a wine bottle into a bird feeder and it’s not like assembling a jig saw puzzle exactly – might take the weekend, in fact, But once you’ve built the frame, filling the bottle’s a snap!
Here’s a YouTube tutorial from Wood Chuck Creations for a wine bottle bird feeder.
Birds Love Crystal Valley!
You’ll run across plenty of bluebirds in the master-planned community of Crystal Valley, both around the homes themselves and along trails and paths throughout the neighborhoods. They know a good community when they find one! Come and explore the new homes surrounded by nature only minutes from the town of Castle Rock. With designs from Richmond American Homes, Kauffman Homes, Century Communities and D.R. Horton, these ranch or two-story models – are priced from the high $300s.
