Try This: DIY Projects for your Natural Home
Stylish, functional, simple, environmentally friendly projects for your Natural Home and Garden.
March/April 2005
By Natural Home Staff
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These fun recycled birdhouses—full of character and shabby chic—are aesthetically pleasing shelters for nesting birds.
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BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME.
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What’s more exciting than the appearance of a nesting pair to set up housekeeping in a new birdhouse? Once you’ve had the pleasure of creating one successful domicile, you’ll want to develop a whole neighborhood. It’s especially satisfying to help establish a population of beneficial birds, such as swallows, that return the good deed by keeping your yard mosquito free. These simple birdhouses—made from a piece of recycled wood, a few nails, and an old license plate—require no special carpentry skills and can be assembled in less than two hours.
Rain Tamer
DOWN CAME THE RAIN. In most parts of the country, spring rains are a gift. To take greatest advantage of that precipitation and to ensure the runoff isn’t wasted—or worse, left to erode siding or undermine foundations—we need to properly channel all this beneficence. Rain chains have been used in Asia for centuries to gracefully control the downward path of water. They use surface tension to efficiently steer water with a minimum of splash and splatter. Ours is pretty adorable, like jewelry for your house. It’s also inexpensive and a lot of fun to make.