Restoring Grandpa's Bird House

My grandpa built this bird house nearly 50 years ago. It was then placed on a post in northern Montana where over the decades it weathered and fell apart. I recently found the parts and instead of disposing of it I decided to repair it.

Old bird house parts

Scrap wood

Glue, nails

Paint and polyurethane

It seem like we are only missing 2 wooden parts that will need to be replaced. Several of the joints are in much better shape than expected and rot is well controlled in most places. Finally the bottom is badly cupped but other than that there is very little warping.

The Joints that remained together seemed to be in good shape in general. This include 2 of the 4 corner joints and the right side roof. I injected glue from the outside and added a few modern nails just to make them continue to last.

There were also several nails that had broken out and would make it imposable to rejoin part so they were cut off using a Dremel tool.

The back had split in half and was glued back together along with filling cracks that had not entirely separated.

The bottom was also in a similar state except one of the pieces was missing. So using symmetry with the other side as a template a new peace was cut then the edge was trimmed to fit better against the existing bottom. It was then glued and clamped in place.

The most complicated part was the front as it include a little of everything from each of the earlier steps. The front was split into 3 parts. One of which was missing and one of which had the left side still connected.

First a new piece was cut to replace the missing one by carving down checking the fit with the parts on either side then correcting this was done about 10 time before I got a part I was happy with. It was rather complicated because not only did it have to fit between existing parts but it had to accommodate the perch and part of the entry hole.

After the filler peace was made the parts were all glued and clamped. At the same time the joint for the back left corner had to be repaired it was glued then secured with modern nails.

Finally the bottom and left roof needed to be attached. This was done using glue and nails as before. There was a small gap in the front due to the cupping of the bottom however it is not that big of a deal.

Finally new paint was applied and then polyurethane in order to better seal the house.

I had intended on leaving it with the old rustic paint however the newly added wood did not look great next to the old weathered wood and the paint will probably protect it better.

Finally using small steel angles the bird house was put back on top of the same post as before where it will hopefully stay another 50 years.