Obsession...

[DaveO]

A year or two ago my beautiful wife bought a cheap pine birdhouse from some craft store and my daughter painted it (in her own personal style ). We gave it to her Grandparents for Xmas. Obviously they loved it... it was from their granddaughter. After about a year it started to fall a part, poor joinery
So my wife asked if I could make them another one, and one that would hold up for a little longer.
I started out jointing and planing some rough cut Western Cedar (it's not really a Cedar but an Arborvitae) down to a ½" thickness. I was worried about some cross grain joinery in my plan so I drilled the holes over-sized and used screws. The rest was glue joints only. I cut dadoes for the sides to reinforce the construction. It has a dovetailed bottom that slides out for cleaning. I turned a Walnut peg for a perch. In all I used almost all of my tools. Jointer, planer, tablesaw, bandsaw, drum-sander, spindle sander, RAS, router, ROS, chisels and block plane, drill/driver, and lots of glue.
I worked for 5 glorious hours in my shop (something I haven't had the time to do for a while). And ended up with this -



I spent most of a day making a Birdhouse Soon my daughter will slather it with paint and no one will see the effort I put into the tight joints or precision miters, not to mention the consideration I have taken to deal with the enviable wood movement. Yes this birdhouse will be hanging out with the Cockroaches after the world ends.
Oh, well the things that you do for those you love


Dave

[farmerbw]

Very nice work bro and there's no kill like overkill!
Can't wait to see if after Ava applies her portion of love to it!

Just occurred to me that Audrey could take this as an opportunity to practice her new hobby as well and burn some shingles on the roof for Ava to paint.

Brian.

[sawduster]

Originally Posted by Splint Eastwood

That's a really nice birdhouse. Im the sure your fine feathered friends will appreciate the great construction! Looks real cozy!

5 hours.... That would have taken me a week.

Nice Job!

Matt

Are you kidding ? It would take me a week just to screw the first one up
.......another week refusing to ever touch it again
Then one afternoon watching while FredP or Doug Robinson built it for me

Excellent job man

[CarvedTones]

Excellent!

That's just the opposite of what happens at my house; I help one of the kids make a bird house and after it falls apart my wife gets one at the craft store for them to paint intstead...

[skeeter]

Nice job. Just think, a great birdhouse destined to become art!!!

[ptt49er]

That's one of the coolest birdhouses I've ever seen.

Now can we see it decorated?

[DaveO]

Originally Posted by ptt49er

That's one of the coolest birdhouses I've ever seen.

Now can we see it decorated?

Phillip, you've obviously not seen Cranbrook2's work. Mine is crap compared to what he creates - http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showg...00&ppuser=1385
Now that's obsession for the birds

We've only got the bird house primmed today. I will definitely post it once my daughter has done her magic to it.


Dave

[jerrye]

Originally Posted by DaveO

Phillip, you've obviously not seen Cranbrook2's work. Mine is crap compared to what he creates - http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showg...00&ppuser=1385
Now that's obsession for the birds

Dave

Yeah, John's work is the EXTREME.......

but yours is NICE

[CarvedTones]

Originally Posted by DaveO

Phillip, you've obviously not seen Cranbrook2's work. Mine is crap compared to what he creates - http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showg...00&ppuser=1385
Now that's obsession for the birds

We've only got the bird house primmed today. I will definitely post it once my daughter has done her magic to it.


Dave

Gotta love that magic. I felt honored when my youngest daughter asked me to carve a shield for her (my wife nixed the sword ). Then she wanted to paint it herself:



At least you were smart enough to take a picture of the unfinished work.

Originally Posted by DaveO

Phillip, you've obviously not seen Cranbrook2's work. Mine is crap compared to what he creates - http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showg...00&ppuser=1385
Now that's obsession for the birds

We've only got the bird house primmed today. I will definitely post it once my daughter has done her magic to it.


Dave

Nice bird house Dave - I was looking at some cedar ones at walmart not long ago I was surprise what the were and the price Cranbrook2 makes bird mansions.

[farmerbw]

Dave, if Audrey helps her a little she might come back with something like this.



Brian.

[ptt49er]

Originally Posted by DaveO

Phillip, you've obviously not seen Cranbrook2's work. Mine is crap compared to what he creates - http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showg...00&ppuser=1385
Now that's obsession for the birds

We've only got the bird house primmed today. I will definitely post it once my daughter has done her magic to it.


Dave

I've seen those, but those are mansions not houses. LOL

The one you built is one I could see in my backyard.

[AudreyO]

Originally Posted by farmerbw

Dave, if Audrey helps her a little she might come back with something like this.



Brian.

Yeah, I am a bit of control freak and was trying not to intervene in the birdhouse project of Ava's. I am USUALLY pretty good at that controlling my inner control freak. However, she is in a phase where if I want her to do something she does not want to do it. She told me she did not want to paint it at first, then she wanted to paint it with magic markers AND THEN she grabbed these markers by crayola called "Color Wonders" and she started drawing on it with those. For those of you that don't know about Color Wonder markers, they have invisible ink and only color on special paper. That way if you are not paying attention to your kid, they can't draw all over the walls (well they can, but the ink is clear). So back to story she gets those and I am DONE. My patience is over. I primed it today along with what felt like a 1000 giant butterflies Dave cut out for me. Now that I have primed it I can't burn it can I? I used kilz so I am not real fond of burning vapors. Plus it is cedar. So if the burning kilz vapors are harmful they will be masked by the nice smell of cedar. I think I can do it without burning anything. The birdhouses by Sticks almost look like I could obtain the same effect with a heavy black outline.

I don't want any one to harbor bad feelings if I take over the birdhouse. I tried, I really really did.

For the birdhouse, I have this idea in my head that the birdhouse will be all things Tennessee and more specifically Nashville. I had this idea a while back for embroidering on dish towels (did Dave tell you I was crazy?, if not I am)-I have this thing where I take images of people etc., and like to embroider them on fabric. It is so much fun. Anyway, on the birdhouse it will have things like "Welcome to Nashville" and "See Rock City" plus all things pertaining to music city.

Sorry for the novella,
Audrey

[farmerbw]

AudreyO we've got a 6 year old budding artist and a 2 year old wanna be artist so BTDTGTTS on several occasions!!!

You are correct that you could get the same results with a heavy black outline. We've not burned anything that been primed with Kilz but do burn stuff that has been coated with WB stains with no ill affects. Was it the WB Kilz? If so you'd probably be ok as long as you don't put your nose directly over the burn plum and inhale it all! I'd just make sure to have real good ventilation or do it outside maybe.

You vision for decoration sounds really cool, sort of billboardish, kinda like the birhouses and what not I've seen that are made out of recycled license plates. The ones I've seen usually have the moto section for the state or county highlighted and really cool. So knock it out and let Ava watch or help when she can and I'm sure the end result will be spectacular. It'll still be made with enough love to cover the whole family and the grandparents will love it just as much when Ava presents it to them.

Brian.