Woodland Birdhouse and Blue Mist Spirea

Blue Mist Spirea

The other day as I was leaving the house I noticed how pretty the Blue Mist Spirea looks right now with the burning bush behind it.  I reminded myself to stop once in a while and take in the sights.

What has been going on at our house?  I volunteered to build a birdhouse out of a portion of retired utility pole for charity.  Boy has this turned into a big project.

Utility Pole (no longer in use due to condition)

Trying to hollow out the core for the birdhouse.  Did I mention I smashed my thumb?

I have been planning to learn woodworking for many years now and we have been building our tool collection for our entire marriage--30 years, one tool at a time.  Finally we have a space to set up a small workshop and so I volunteered to do this little charity project, thinking, "I have the perfect book showing me how to do this and I can hollow it out with our bandsaw".

The book is titled, "Enchanting Woodland Birdhouses" by Lucinda Claire Macy.  She now has a shop on Etsy where you can buy her marvelous birdhouses.  They are so pretty.  Anyway her book is wonderful for photos and instructions.  It has been on my mental to-do list, to build one of these some day.

So I brought this chunk of utility pole home (I work for a utility company) and discovered the diameter was too large to use any of our power tools safely (remember, my skills are limited) so I sawed off 12" with a japanese handsaw.  This wasn't as difficult as it might sound since the wood was nice and dry.  Then it wouldn't fit under the bandsaw even to saw off the 45 degree gables so I again used the japanese handsaw.  By now I was working up a sweat.

Since I couldn't follow the tidy instructions in the book for using our bandsaw to cut the center out (it only has an 8" clearance), we tried a few creative ideas.  My husband pointed out that Native Americans used fire to help hollow out canoes so we tried burning out the center which worked until the fire decided it wanted to burn the whole thing up and I quickly put it out and started drilling holes and using a chisel and mallet.
A round log is difficult to set up so it doesn't shift around while drilling and hammering (just file that one away for future reference....) Of course as I neared the bottom of the log, the entire thing split into several chunks.  This actually made it easier to finish coring out the center.  I then glued the outer shell back together, held it together with rubber bands while the glue set and turned out the light for the day.

It took two weekends but I finally finished it yesterday.  I like it.  I hope the charity gets more than a few dollars for it!

My Woodland Birdhouse for the upcoming Women of Waterpower Scholarship Fund Craft Fair.

The windows have colored glass panes!  

What I have learned from this:  although the patina of the aged pole looks really great, a younger piece of wood may have been easier to work with for a beginner like me and the 1" forstner bit was the most efficient way to get rid of the core.

Maybe I will just buy it back from the craft fair?