Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Today I didn't feel like running the 14 miles I was supposed to (I will do it tomorrow) so instead I worked in the garage on my next project, building a birdhouse. It took roughly 4 hours to complete and I have to say that it started out great but ended terribly. Now I realize the goal is to put together a little home for a bird and I definitely accomplished that, but there are so many problems with the house, that I feel ashamed to put it up and use it. One thing I have to note, the wood is from my old desk that I made, so I took it apart and am going to use it for various projects. It is plywood which is really hard to work with as far as projects go because it splinters when you cut it (you can see if you look closely) and it is just extremely low quality lumber. But as Gordon Ramsay says, bad chefs blame their ingredients so.... umm... "plywood is wonderful". Check out the craptastic work:


Check out the not-so-round hole in the front and the bump that is a screw trying to push through on the front of the house. The reason I couldn't get the hole round is because I put the house together before creating the hole, so that makes it extremely difficult to use any tools to make a good round hole. Lesson learned.


Believe it or not, the gap above the hole where the roof is, was put there on purpose. It allows for ventilation for the birds during the summer heat.


I put a little ladder there on the inside front of the house. I've read that a lot of birdhouses do a great job raising the baby birds but then when the babies need to get out they have no way of climbing because they can't fly. So I built a little ladder out of spare wood. If you're thinking the wood for the ladder looks a little hapharzard, it's because the rougher the wood the easier it is for the babies to grip, so the ladder is rough on purpose. There are holes in the floor for ventilation and also if for some reason it rains into the house, the water has somewhere to drain

I guess if I made the hole more rounded and didn't have that protruding screw on the front, it would be a pretty decent house but I'm still a little annoyed. But like I said, it will house a bird this year so it will accomplish it's goal.

What kind of birds can stay in the Fulton Bird Suite #1? Chickadee's, Titmouse's (or would that be Titmice?), Nuthatches, and Wrens. The house is only for small birds that can fit through 1.5" diameter holes. I feel uncomfortable making a bird house for bigger birds. If for some reason a smaller bird tried to use it, there's a good chance a bigger bird would come in and kill the babies and we definitely don't want that. It's pretty rare to provide a suite where it's OK to open the door and take pictures, so we will do our best to monitor whoever inhabits the Fulton Bird Suite #1.

By the way, Fulton Bird Suite #2 will be on the way shortly once I have enough time.