I wanted to make my mom something special for her birthday, and knowing that her old bird feeder had completely fallen apart, I figured it would make the perfect gift. The only question was how to design it. I had a few simple ideas in my head, and then it finally hit me. These all kind of look like covered bridges. And my mom lives in Madison County. Yeah, that Madison County. So, it completely made sense: covered bridge bird feeder.
I drew up a few designs and finally found something that stuck. I thought about using solid wood for the front and back just to make it easier, but that would lead to the problem of not really being able to see how much feed was left inside without actually walking out and removing the top. Not to mention, it would just look more like a bridge with the front and back open. So, I came up with an idea to go with glass for the front and back.
Like most of my projects, this is one where I had a design in my head, drew it up on paper, and then just started and figured it out along the way. But as you get into it, you realize some things you may have forgotten.
For instance, I expected the front and back gables to really stabilize the body. But one you do a dry run of putting it together, you begin to realize that’s probably not going to cut it. I ended up just adding an extra piece in the middle of the two side walls, and then a long skinny piece the length of the feeder that connects at the top of the two gables. With the lid on, you’ll never see these pieces. But they were definitely needed in order to make sure the squirrels don’t destroy this thing.
This was a fun project, and one of the cool things was the low cost. I really didn’t have to go out and buy a lot of material. The side walls, gables, roof, and base trim pieces were all made from scraps I had left over from previous projects. I did have to go buy one cedar board that became the base, and ran to the local hardware store once I knew the exact feeder dimensions and had them cut the two pieces of glass. Other than that, it was left over spray paint and epoxy that I had on had to finish. And, of course, nails, screws, and wood glue.
What did I learn? Well, I learned that the design might not be the best. I definitely like the concept, but my execution was probably not ideal. It’s gonna hold up, but I think that having to nail the gables to the walls was pretty risky with the glass being there. Ideally, maybe there was a way to design with the glass being removable. I’ll have to think about that for the next one of these. Maybe some of grandma’s friends from her Bridge group will want one? And I’m talking about the card game Bridge. She doesn’t actually have a bunch of covered bridge groupie friends. That’d be weird.
Overall, I’m happy with it. I’d struggled to buy a gift for my mom for a few years now. She’s at the point in life where it’s hard to find gifts for her because she’s already bought what she needs, or you ‘re just getting her one more piece of Hawkeye clothing. It was pretty rewarding making her something by hand that she gets to enjoy and look out her window and see used by her cardinals and robins. I hope you enjoyed taking a look at making this. And I hope you’ll try something too. If you do, I’m sure you’ll figure things out along the way.
Thanks for stopping by.