How To Paint A BirdHouse

Learning how to paint a birdhouse is no big deal. Ideally, however, you not only want to paint the birdhouse, but you want to make it environmentally friendly as well.

The best and easiest way to make sure your birdhouse is environmentally friendly is to not paint it at all. Unfortunately, however, while the birds may enjoy it, you won't. Raw wood will slowly deteriorate over time. The rain, heat, ice and sleet will age the wood causing it to rot, split, and crack. Painting the birdhouse will help to protect the wood from the elements.

But using normal paint won't do. You want to prevent the house from being toxic to the birds. That means - no lead based paints. By now, almost everyone knows that lead paint can be harmful to children. Lead is very toxic to both humans and animals. Since birds peck on their bird houses, they will ingest some of the paint and that can have dire consequences to their health. So when you choose a paint be sure that it is not a lead-based paint.  Using a good latex paint is fine.

Ok, having decided that we're going to not use lead paint, the next step is choosing the color of paint. Bird nests are generally hidden to keep predators away; therefore, neutral colors are the best colors to use on your bird house. Brightly colored bird houses may be beautiful to your eye, but it will bring unwanted attention to the birds inside and may pose potential danger to the baby birds.  

Consider where parent birds build their nests in the wild. The nests are well hidden to keep predators away. Therefore, use neutral colors, a soft green, tan, or brown. A color that will blend into the background. If you just have to have bright eye-popping colors in your back yard, bring them into your garden in the form of garden ornaments, stepping stones, or flowers. Help keep your backyard bird families as safe as possible by helping the birdhouse blend into its surroundings.

How to Paint the Inside of a Birdhouse

The inside of the bird house is a different story. Baby birds will peck and eat small bits of the inside of the house as they grow older, so the inside should be left as natural wood. DO NOT paint the inside of the bird house.

You can, however, choose to paint decorations on the outside. Once the main painting is finished, make a few extra strokes of white and pale yellow paint to paint beautiful flowers on the front of your house.

You can now breathe deeply and stand back and admire your work. You started the weekend project not knowing how to paint a birdhouse and now your project is finished with a half a day to spare. It really was a simple and quite educational project.

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Teaching your kids how to make a bird house out of paper can not only be a great bonding experience for you and your children, it can also provide shelter for some of your favorite birds.

Making A Small Wood Bird House
Making a small wood bird house for your garden can be a fun, relaxing, and rewarding way to enhance the time you spend in your garden.

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