How to Build a Basic Birdhouse

1 / 5
Learn how to build a basic birdhouse. This homemade birdhouse can attract a variety of birds to your back yard, including house wrens.
Learn how to build a basic birdhouse. This homemade birdhouse can attract a variety of birds to your back yard, including house wrens.
2 / 5
With a few simple modifications, you can adapt the Basic Birdhouse design to attract bluebirds.
With a few simple modifications, you can adapt the Basic Birdhouse design to attract bluebirds.
3 / 5
Chickadees are just one of several birds that could make your backyard birdhouse home.
Chickadees are just one of several birds that could make your backyard birdhouse home.
4 / 5
You can build our Basic Birdhouse with a few pieces of lumber, tools you probably have on hand and an hour or so of your time.
You can build our Basic Birdhouse with a few pieces of lumber, tools you probably have on hand and an hour or so of your time.
5 / 5
The MOTHER EARTH NEWS Basic Birdhouse. Follow the steps outlined in the article and you can make this nest box in no time.
The MOTHER EARTH NEWS Basic Birdhouse. Follow the steps outlined in the article and you can make this nest box in no time.

Learn how to build a basic birdhouse. This nest box is easy to build, and will provide critical shelter for birds you’ll love to watch.

The birdhouse my son and I built two years ago last fall is as plain and drab as brown burlap, the corners not quite square, the sloped roof a tad up-cupped from multiple seasons of Carolina weather. It’s not much more than a shanty compared to its heart- and flower-painted gift-shop counterparts. You’ll never see it featured in Fine Woodworking or Better Homes & Gardens.

But you will see it, or rather countless others like it, tacked to trees and fence posts all across this nation. It is the Basic Birdhouse, and though I can’t claim statistics to prove it, I’d bet my pocketknife it’s the most popular woodworking project in modern-day America. Little wonder. There’s a lot of beauty in that little nest box, when you think about it.

For starters, there’s the design’s simplicity. All you need to build this basic birdhouse are about an hour’s time, common hand tools, a few screws or nails, and lumber no fancier or more expensive than a standard 6-foot length of 1-by-6 shelf board, plus a scrap piece of 1-by-8 big enough for the roof. Use pine, cedar, spruce or whatever kind of wood you might have on hand — except of course wood treated with toxic preservatives.

Plus, there’s the little house’s versatility. Nail it to a tree or post 5 to 10 feet above the ground in or at the edge of open woods or shrubbery, and you’ll invite house wrens, titmice, nuthatches, chickadees and downy woodpeckers. And with simple changes, you can modify the design to make a bluebird house.

  • Published on Oct 1, 2007
Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368