How to Build a Norwegian Bird Condo From a 2X4

Ok so maybe this is just a bird house, but it reminded me of an Instagram photo a friend took took of houses in Norway - the point is - this tutorial will show you how to make it entirely from a single 2x4!

What you'll need:

• Safety gear
• Tape Measure
• Pencil
• 96" 2x4
• Table Saw
• Brad Nails
• Hammer or staple gun (staple gun recommended)

Set your table say to about 3/16" and lob off those corners,

The piece you end up with will be about 3" wide x 1-1/2"

This is the 'stock' that the entire bird house will be made out of.

Results may very depending on the kerf of your blade but I was able to get exactly four (4) boards

One of the first cuts you'll want to make is a 45 degree bevel down the length of one of your boards.

You want to make this cut on a long board for safety reasons but you actually don't need to do it for an entire 96" you only need about 26" of roof boards so if you want to just make this bevel on that length of board you can.

Now cross cut this board with the bevel in it into six (6) 4" long pieces

These are the front and sides of your bird houses. At 7-1/2" there're going to be a little longer than you need them to be but you'll trim them up later.

Each house has four (4) sides and there are three (3) houses so you need twelve (12) of this piece. You should be able to make these from a single 96" board. Once these are cut set them aside.

Set your cross cut guide to 45 degrees and put a point on (6) of your 7-1/2" boards you just made.

These are the fronts and backs of your 3 houses.

When you're done set the cross cut guide back to 90 and trim your pieces to to 7" long

These are the right and left sides of your 3 houses

Unless your a robot, some pieces will fit together better than others, experiment with the parts of your 3 houses until you find a combination of parts that seems to work for all three, then nail the 4 walls together.

There isn't a pictures of this step but if you've been keeping track of measurements, the sides of your house are way longer than the front/back of your house. After its nailed together you want to trim everything square on the table saw. Because of the arrangement of your pieces there shouldn't be any nails in the way of the cut but make sure the're aren't before trimming.

If your roof halves don't line up (as shown) you can trim them even on the table saw like you trimmed the bottom of the houses.

Now the houses need a floor or a base plate,

Cut three (3) 1/4 x 3" x 2.5" pieces from the remaining wood and nail them in

Ok this is 4 steps but they're easy ones everyone know how to do

You should have some 1/4" x 3" boards left - how you join the houses is up to you. My houses weren't exactly the same height when I was finished so I put them at an angle to hide that. You can make them go straight across if you'd like or any other arrangement you can think of.

I drilled the hole (1-1/4") after the houses were joined together but you could also do it before

Sanding and staining are the last sub-steps. If I had to do this again I would have painted these different colors to match the colorful houses in the picture I describes on the first step.

You can attach you Norwegian bird condo directly to a tree through one of the 'doors'