Birdhouse Construction for Dummies

A basic birdhouse plan

When it comes to simple woodworking projects, it's pretty likely that the first project many a pre-teen tackles is building a birdhouse. Lots of birdhouse plans are simple, involving only a few cuts from a board or boards. Having good pictures is most helpful, but if you can't have pictures, then you'd better be very good at writing descriptions of the steps. In "How to Make a Bird's Nesting Box" at eHow.com, contributor Jessica Reed does a pretty lousy job of those descriptions...

Reed, who pounded out hundreds of eHow articles, did what most of the site's J-school and creative writing grads did (Jessica was getting a "certificate in web design"): she took someone else's plans and reworked them. Sadly, Ms Reed knew nothing about carpentry, so she muffed the very first step in any plan for birdhouses. Said Jess,

"Use a carpenter's square and a pencil to mark off the follow [sic] size pieces of wood from a plywood board..."

That's right: a "plywood board"! never mind that she forgot to mention the thickness of this "board"; never mind that she didn't mention the type of plywood (or that people don't generally use plywood for birdhouses). Just cut out the pieces she lists:

"Front and back--8 5/8 by 6 1/2 inches Sides--6 1/2 by 5 inches Floor--6 1/2 by 6 1/4 inches 2 rails--5 1/2 by 1/2 inches Roof No. 1--6 1/2 by 9 1/4 inches Roof No. 2--6 by 9 1/4 inches..."

A little punctuation might have helped, but we (finally) figured it out. Now, according to Reed, you "Cut out the pieces." Unlike most eHowians, she didn't bother to tell you what specific tool to use, just a "saw." Finally, you cut peaks on the front and back (why you didn't just draw them in the first place, we don't know [yes we do: she cribbed a set of plans for dimensional lumber]) and assemble. One of those steps is,

"Take the two rails you cut and mark the center of them with a pencil. Find the center of the inside front and back pieces and mark it as well. Line up one rail with each piece, aligning the center marks."

We have to be honest: we have no idea what she's saying to do: is this supposed to be flush with the bottom? on an edge? half-way up the outside? Where? Inquiring minds and all that...

We tried like heck to figure out what the final dimensions of the box would be. The front and back are 6½" wide as are the sides, and the sides are "Attach[ed]... between the front and back"; so the floor needs to be 6½" wide and 6½" plus twice the thickness of the "plywood" long to cover the entire base... 6¼" probably will not do that.

In other words, Reed's plans – in addition to being damned near impossible to follow – leave a substantial gap in the floor. Oops. That's not to mention that our Dumbass of the Day is clueless enough to think the average Joe or Jane can find a 1½" drill bit...

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