Bird House Plans

This page includes instructions and parts needed to build a bird house from ½” plywood and 2x4 lumber. This is not ideal lumber for building bird houses. If you are planning to buy materials for bird house construction, consider using ¾” cedar boards and using any number of free bird house plans that can be found online.

Purpose

The purpose of this project is two fold. The first is to use up scrap lumber used to create the field elements used in our Week Zero field. Most teams create practice elements for their team to use each year. Often these field elements are made from 2x4 lumber, and ½” plywood. At the end of the season, many of these field elements when disassembled have several small pieces, which are not worth saving for the following year, or the team lacks space to store the lumber until the following season. This project can both help keep this material out of the land fill, but also provide habitat for song birds.

The second purpose is to provide a building project to both train new students on basic construction skills, but also to create an outreach opportunity for students to try a new hands-on building project. KnightKrawler uses the bird house project as the cornerstone for our “Girls in the Shop” outreach.

This bird house made from untreated plywood and 2x4 lumber will likely only last outdoors for a few years unless painted. Again, the goal is to recycle and build skills. Consider pre-painting all parts with white primer before the event. Then your students can decorate the houses with markers if they don’t have the ability to paint the houses they take home.

A Home for Birds

The resulting house satisfies the common requirements for most small song birds, including the House Wren, Nuthatch, and Chickadee. Some key components for building a home for these birds include:

A 1”-1 ⅛” entrance hole.
Interior dimensions that are ideal for small birds
Drainage holes in the floor far any moisture
Ventilation holes at the roof
No perch peg. These are now discouraged for most small birds because it creates a perch for predators and small birds do not need them.

Cut List

Download the zip file containing all the dimensions of each part to be cut. Not all 2x4” lumber is the same width. These plans are designed for 2x4 lumber that is exactly 3½” wide. However, the pattern was designed so that lumber that is slightly smaller will still work. The font and back of the house will slightly overlap the sides if your dimensionally lumber is slightly smaller. This is also true if your ½” plywood is slightly smaller than ½”.

Assembly Steps

Step 1

There are two different 2x4 blocks. One with a square end (bottom/floor block) and the other with angled ends (top/ceiling block). To achieve the floor space needed for the birds to make a nest, we must add small spacers made from plywood to the sides of our top and bottom blocks. These spacers are shorter than the floor blocks on purpose. The gaps will create the drainage holes in the corners of the floor, once the house is assembled. The same spacers are used in the top for conveniences of using the same size pieces, attach the pieces together as shown in the diagram

To attach the boards there are a few options. If the goal is to introduce tool usage, we recommend using 4d nails (or something of similar size). This will allow the students to learn to use a hammer. However, all plywood must have pre-drilled holes. Hammering small nails through plywood is very challenging for beginners and a pilot hole will help avoid flying nails. Two nails per spacer is sufficient.

Wood screws (1.5”) may be used however this will require counter sinking every hole, which can be time consuming.

If hammering is not important, and you have access to a pin nailer nail gun (23 gauge nails), we recommend assembling the blocks ahead of time. This step can create a large bottle neck in your assembly line, if you have many students building houses. Pre-nailing the spacers can save significant time. At a minimum you may want to predrill holes in the spacers before your event with an ⅛” drill bit (or similar size).

Outdoor wood glue could be used for all assembly steps (except the front), but it is not necessary.

Step 2

Time to add sides to your top and bottom blocks. Position the bottom block ½” off the bottom edge of the sides. This has a nicer look to the finished product, but can also help avoid some moisture issues. Remember that your spacer blocks are ½” thick. You can use an extra spacer to temporarily raise your bottom block up to a ½” offset from the bottom edge of the bird house sides. In the right image above, the right side of the image is the back of the birdhouse. Align both your top and bottom blocks so they line up with the back of the birdhouse. The top block will be noticeably shorter than the front of the house. This is by design. The gap is needed for ventilation. The top block should be flush (even) with both the back and top of the side pieces as shown in the image.

Drill holes in the side pieces in the location as shown in the downloadable diagrams. This will give students practice with a tape measure, however this can be time consuming. You can have students measure some holes precisely, and guess the position of other holes. Either method will be a good learning experience. Pre-drill the holes in the plywood sides using a ⅛” drill bit, or something similar. While it is not necessary for the walls and roof, using a counter sink bit on the pre-drilled holes will improve how the bird house looks when complete.

For wood screws, we recommend using 1 ½” or 1 ⅝” star bit wood screws. These screws use a T25 Bit (often called Torx). This bit can be used in a drill, but an impact driver is often easier to use. It is much easier for students new to using a drill to drive screws to use a star bit than a phillips or flat bit.

Step 3

Attach the front back and top of the birdhouse as shown in the image above. We recommend star screws for all pieces except the front. For attaching the front pieces we recommend using only 2 screws and we recommend phillips screws that are 1 ¾” or 2”. This is because the front is removable so the house can be cleaned each winter. Few families have a star bit drill/driver at home, but most have a phillips screw driver. Attaching the front of the bird house with phillips screws will make it possible for your students to clean the old nests out each year.

For creating the entry hole for the birds to come and go, we recommend either using a forstner bit in a drill press, or using a spade/speed bit with a hand drill. Drilling a large hole can be dangerous for new tool users . Be sure to clamp the wood when drilling large holes and have knowledgeable users supervising the drilling.

Step 4

Paint or stain the house. Different advice can be found for how to prepare your bird house for the weather. The best option is to use a naturally rot resistant wood, such as cedar, and avoid adding any paint or stain. However, plenty of birdhouses are painted and the birds happily move into them. It is your choice on how to prepare your birdhouse for new tenants. It is often recommended to put up a new house in the fall. This will give the house several months to “weather” and the fresh paint or new lumber smells will dissipate.

Step 5

Lots of advice can be found online for where to hang your bird house. Cornell Lab has created a great guide for birds. To hang this bird house you could attach a screw eyelet to the center of the roof and hang it from a branch with a rope or wire. You could remove the front and attach it to a building or post, then replace the front. You could also take your bird house to a local hardware store and ask for help finding a metal bracket to attach to the back of the birdhouse for attaching in the place that suits you best.

Enjoy your birdhouse. Hopefully this project has helped you recycle some small lumber scraps and is the start of many more bird houses to come.