[AD] Spruce Up Your Garden Campaign With Bosch Home & Garden

I have teamed up with Bosch Home & Garden for their campaign, ‘Spruce Up Your Garden’. Let’s be fair, this is something that we have definitely had plenty of time to do with the lockdown that we have been experiencing in the country.

Improving your garden can happen in many ways. It could be that you are going to plant some new shrubs, re-design the borders or add a new feature to the garden such as a water feature or a something else that will attract wildlife to your garden. There are of course numerous ways to give your garden a lift.

During lockdown the one thing I have found very noticeable is the wildlife seems to have returned in a big way. I’m sure this must be to do with the reduced number of cars on the road and the reduction of planes in the air. It’s almost as if nature is taking planet earth back.

We as a family are lucky enough to live in an area where there are plenty of birds. Our back garden is a chorus of song every morning, which has been more prominent during lockdown.

I decided that a great addition to our garden would be a birdhouse so that we can observe the wildlife in our back garden. This is something my eight-year-old twin girls love to do.

Bosch Home & Garden have a section on their blog where they have numerous inspirational ideas for the garden. You can check it out right here.

One of the projects is a DIY birdhouse which is what I have decided to make. It is of a medium difficultly and will take about 3-8 hours to make. It does have a cost if you source the wood from a builders merchant or DIY store, but I am a big believer in using what you have stored in the garage or the shed from maybe a previous project etc. It’s a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way of making your birdhouse. I will be using Bosch power tools, which thanks to the quality and ease of use and will make the job of building my birdhouse that much easier.

Making the Birdhouse

1. The first thing to do is to measure all the parts of your birdhouse out on your wood. The front and rear of the birdhouse is made out of wood that should be 1.8cm thick and they will look like a triangle and trapezium. The sides will be rectangles and the roof boards will be made of plywood of 0.4cm in thickness.

2. Once you have completed all your measuring it’s time to cut them all out. For this I used the Bosch AdvancedCut 18 cordless NanoBlade saw which was just perfect for the job. It gave a precision cut every time and cut the wood very quickly. Before you begin to assemble the birdhouse you will need to sand all the wood pieces using the Bosch PSM Primo multi-sander with the Bosch sanding sheets (180 Grit) which will then give a perfect finish when you have painted your birdhouse.

3. Now all the wood is prepared it is time to assemble your birdhouse. For this you will need the Bosch AdvancedImpact 18 cordless combi drill and the Bosch IXO cordless screwdriver. You will also need a 5mm wood drill bit and a HSS 44mm bi-metal holesaw.

Before you start to assemble any of the wood, you will need to create an entrance and exit for the birds. You do this by using the Bosch HSS 44mm bi-metal holesaw which is attached to the cordless combi drill. You also need to drill the position for the perch just underneath the exit and entry hole.

Now that part is done you can construct the bottom of the birdhouse. Before screwing the sides together add the batons to the front and rear on the inside of the bottom part as these will be used to fix the upper front and rear walls of the birdhouse to the base.

Once that is done start screwing the bottom sides together using the IXO cordless screwdriver or the cordless combi drill. Before fixing in the last part, slide in the base of the birdhouse. You can screw that in place if you want but it’s not necessary. The bottom half of the birdhouse is now together. Then simply use two screws to fix the upper front and rear walls to the base.

4. Now paint all the wood and the roof panels. I have painted the main part of the birdhouse in grey and the roof panels in red. To stop the wood rotting I would recommend putting a coat of clear varnish on the painted surfaces.

5. Finally you only have to add the roof panels and make sure they overhang the front of the birdhouse by about 6cm and glue them into place using wood glue and then tape them together leaving enough room to add a wooden rod to the gable. To finish off, fix the wooden rod that birds can use as a perch.

6. That’s it! Your birdhouse is complete. Now all you have to do is find a suitable spot in your garden either on a tree, a fence or if you want on a wall making sure it’s approximately 3 metres above ground level and sheltered from the wind. My birdhouse is at the back of our garden on the fence under a large overhanging tree.

It’s now time to sit back and wait for your first family of birds to settle into their new home and you can observe the wildlife in your back garden.

It was really simple to make and the fact that I used wood that I already had in my shed saved me the cost of buying any materials and recycled some wood that otherwise would have ended up in landfill. I had trouble buying the wooden rods I needed because of the lockdown, so I made the gable rod and the perch on a 3D printer which is made from bio-degradable materials.

What projects have you done or have you got planned for your garden? I would love to hear in the comments below.

This is a paid collaboration with Bosch Home & Garden. All thoughts and opinions are 100% mine.

The Bosch tools that were used in this project were a Bosch AdvancedCut 18 cordless NanoBlade saw, Bosch PSM Primo multi-sander, Bosch AdvancedImpact 18 cordless combi drill and the Bosch IXO cordless screwdriver.

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