Summer Project #6: Secret Birdhouse

There have been a lot of things thrown out to the curb in the neighorhood this summer because of all of the rain and flooded basements.  At first, we had enough coming out of our own basement that I didn't want to save any of the wood (most of it perfectly good) that appeared in our alleys.  When your basement floods, the last thing you worry about is trying to save parts of the furniture that have been sitting in poop-water.  However, once the garage was organized and things calmed down a bit, I couldn't resist picking up pieces of two dressers that a neighbor around the corner was throwing out.

The first step was to break down the various shelves and to strip the laminate.

Some of it was pretty gross but most of the wood could be salvaged, sanded, or trimmed.

And this is what I ended up with...

It's a pretty standard bluebird or wren house but I tried to retain some of the elements of the original piece of furniture.  The roof is the front of a drawer, the signage on the front is the stamp of the makers of the original cabinet "John and Sagan Cabinets", and the lower rails are handles.

The roof opens to allow for easy end-of-the-season cleaning.

The underside has cuts for ventiliation.  I also used screws here to allow the floor to be removed in the case of a deep cleaning.

  

The inside has a "ladder" to allow baby birds to grip the wood to get to the exit.

A handle was repurposed.

I attempted to give the birdhouse back to the people who originally threw it out but they didn't answer the door when I knocked this evening.  Their house looked a little run-down though, and I wanted my first birdhouse to have a good home so I gave it to the neighbors down the street instead.