• Birdhouses can be made at home.birdhouse -6 image by Rog999 from Fotolia.com
  
  Birdhouses are organic structures built from wood, metal or other materials to accommodate bird families. The goal of a birdhouse is to attract birds during their nesting phase so that they will lay eggs and raise young in the house. Birds also use birdhouses to provide shelter in harsh weather as well as to store food for later. You can create a birdhouse from home with a few basic materials and a good idea.
  
  

Simple Birdhouse

• Construct a simple birdhouse out of lumber in an attractive color such as cedar, or decorate with paint. The standard birdhouse design is a box shape with a pitched roof. How you customize this standard, simple birdhouse design is up to you. You can create it as large or small as you like. You can add as many entry or exit holes as you like. Another option is to add perches on the outside of the birdhouse, especially beneath entrances to the house itself. There are a variety of ways that you can take the standard birdhouse design and build on it to create a customized home for the birds in your neighborhood.
  
  

Themed Birdhouse

• Expand on the simple or standard birdhouse design by creating a birdhouse with a theme. The way that you can do this is by choosing some type of building or structure and creating a birdhouse out of it. Popular birdhouse ideas along this line of thinking include lighthouses, shops, hotels and other fun shapes. You would create the structure from wood, tin or other sturdy, weather-safe materials, then paint or decorate the bird house to resemble this theme. There are a variety of different ways that you can alter a birdhouse to take on a completely new and interesting theme.
  
  

Natural Birdhouses

• Another idea for bird house creation is to use organic materials and create a birdhouse that resembles something from nature. For example, you might take a gourd or a pumpkin, hollow it out, carve holes in the sides for entrances, and seal the whole thing with a commercial sealant. This way, you can hang a natural looking gourd from the eaves of your home or a tree, and it will resemble nature more closely than standard bird houses. If you are looking to attract a wider variety of birds, this is a great way to go, and it involves using something natural and organic in the process.