How to Make a Mid-century Modern Frank Lloyd Wright Birdhouse | Woodworking Project

Welcome back to make somethingwith me, David Picciuto.

And today we're going totake some inspiration fromFrank Lloyd Wright and make this mid century modern birdhouse.

Today we're going to build a birdhouse on the fly without plans.

We have a few bird houses around the yard, but we have this one in particularthat definitely needs replaced.

Uh, it's falling over, it'srotted, it's not looking so good.

There's nothing in there.

So we're just going to find some materialsthat we already have on hand and just kind of wing it today.

No plans Willy nilly.

I'm a really big fan ofFrank Lloyd Wright houses, so maybe we'll kind of play off of someof his designs and just have fun today.

So let's go see what wehave in the shop.

Yeah, so this is a nice piece of eithermaple or Baltic Birch plywood, three quarter inch.

We'll, we're just gonna use this.

I'm going to draw up thisvision that I have in my head.

We'll have a bottom piece that will bethe bottom and then we'll have a roof, maybe a a slanted roof, and it's slanted.

And it overhangs the actualhouse part.

Maybe right here we drew a little hole andthen we have a little perch.

Maybe we'll put in some little decorativesupport beams here.

Not real sure.

So we're just gonna see where thisproject takes us.

Who knows? Maybe, uh, maybe this design will completelychange at the end.

Maybe this will be a, an exact technical drawing.

We have, what's going to bethe floor and then the roof, the depth on both of them is nine inches.

The floor is 11 inchesand the roof is 12 inches.

The roof is a little bit wider.

Longer to give it alittle bit more overhang.

The dimensions may change overtime.

We're just playing around.

We're going to see what happens.

We'regoing by feel today we are using plywood.

Of course.

Wait, let me come around.

Of course you don't want touse plywood for a bird house.

It's going to get wet and the laminationsare going to come apart in the future.

Of course, this is the wrong material, but we're using what we have and noteverything that we make has to live for generations.

Maybe thisonly last year or two years.

Of course you shouldn't use plywood.

Of course you should be using solid woodlike teak or Cedar or maybe even pine.

Of course.

We're winging it people.

WeAre having fun.

We've got the floor, we've got the roof.

Let's make the front and the backand we're going to have a slope.

I dunno, maybe that's who knows whatangle that is.

We'll lock that down.

How about that? Does thatlook good? That look good.

This guy is six inches wide.

Let's come up five and a half inches.

So right there and then we canuse this guy and draw our slope.

So now that we have this piece cut, we can take this andmake our second piece, which will be the back.

And I'mgonna just draw a line on there.

So we have our two pieces.

If you cut that on the bandsaw and youdon't have a perfectly straight line, you can just hold them together and give it a little little sand job.

Put one piece back there and then we'llput one piece up here and then our roof is going to go on like so.

So here is what I'm thinking.

It looks a little too wide.

So I'm going to chop off this floor aboutright there and then on the roof I'm going to cut and there we go.

Looking a little better.

Now that it's not so wide and we've gotthe angles on there that's going to add some some little if youknow what I'm saying.

So I think the next thing we need to dois make these two walls that go right there.

We've got the side pieces inthere, cut them a little too tall, we're going to inset them a little bitjust for some decoration and I can set my blade to this angle and thencut that off and cut that off.

and they are going to go inthere like so.

And then there.

So that's our progress.

It's looking pretty good.

We're going to add a lot ofthe detail later, I think.

So the next thing I want todo is cut a little drill, a little hole right here forthe birds to get in there.

Fun fact, I don't even like birds.

Besides hole that you drill will bedependent on the type of bird that you are looking to attract.

Looking pretty good.

So the next thing I want to do is drillsome holes in the front here and drill some holes in the back.

To assemble this assembly.

Todo that I'm going to use this, Make It Snappy tools kit with this countersink bit and my drill Bret can take out that bit and throw in that bit.

And this bit is going to drill the pilothole and then countersink so the screw head sits below the surface.

So now that I have those pilot holesdrilled, I can switch this bit back out.

Nice and quick.

I've got this clamp together andI'm just going to screw it together.

So now we're going toattach this to the floor.

I want it to be about a quarter of aninch inset from the back and then maybe three quarters of aninch from the side there.

And I'll just kind of Mark out wherethis is and we'll drill hole here, a hole here, here.

And I'm not going to countersink I justwant the hole to go through so I'm not going to go the full depth.

I'llshow you why here in a second.

The bottom side.

I cansee where those holes are and I can come throughand counter sink here.

There we go.

Looking pretty, pretty good.

I need to do the samething with the roof here.

So I'm just gonna find where I wanted togo and make sure those little overhang there.

Mark my lines, drill my holes from the bottomand then finish on the top.

So that's basically the bird house.

So now I'm going to cut some contrastingpieces of wood to cover up the plywood edges and to cover up the screwsand fancy this guy up a little bit.

Yeah.

We're done fancying this guyup.

We got one last thing to do, so before we go and install this outside, I'd like to tell you about today'ssponsor and that is Make It Snappy tools.

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This set right here is themakers edition deluxe tool book, which has all the common bits thatyou would need for woodworking.

It's got countersink bits, the drillbit adapters, the plug cutters, the bit drivers, the flat bottom counterbores andthese self centering drill bits.

Plus it's got a depth stop system inthere as well in this little pouch right here.

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What I love about thiskit is I can just zip this up, take this in the house, take mydrill.

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They have a couple of different versionsof this book available on their website and if you don't need allof those bits and drivers, they do have smaller pouches thatyou can put on your tool belt.

I'll have it linked to everythingdown below in the video description.

Thank you.

Make it snappy.

Tools.

Now let's go install this birdhouse I did add that fenderwasher on the outside.

And this is a trick that I learned frommy grandpa is that it keeps the larger birds from a non away at thewhole and making the hole bigger.

So thank you grandpa for that trick.

Yes, I went a little overboard andthat's what made it so fun.

We had some extra roofingshingles from when we moved in, so I used that for the roof.

We just use some, some stones, some aquarium stones that I had forthe front.

If I could change anything, I would have used something that's alittle bit more colorful for the front stone.

I would have preferredlike a river rock type look, but I just use what I had.

Also the little perch, I wished that was metal just so it wouldmatch the fender washer on there to give that some, some continuity.

But we're just using what we have todayand uh, yeah, it looks pretty good.

It might not last foreverand that's okay.

That's, it's all about having funand just making stuff.

So thank you for watching.

As always, be safe, have fun, stay passionate, and make something.