Making a Moregeous Mansion – the best birdhouse in the West

Once upon a time there was a bit of a sorry looking birdhouse, rescued from a house renovated by Team Moregeous but not really given any of it’s own TLC. Even so, our squirrels and birds loved it and the birdhouse was much used for several years, ignored by our resident pussy cat Mia whose jumping days were long gone. Even the goldfinches with their special niger seed holder didn’t interest Mia, who mostly concentrated on killing time, not wildlife. When we lost Mia after 15yrs last new year my heart was broken, but a small fluffy bundle of fun with a tongue like a rasp found us and demanded our care, even though I wasn’t quite ready for another cat. I didn’t realise that once she got settled in, she’d turn into the Fallowfield Fiend, rampaging through my wildlife and leaving half eaten goldfinches at the bottom of the stairs! All that, and she looks so innocent, appearances can be VERY deceptive.

Something had to be done to elevate the existing birdhouse and get all the seeds well away from ground level. I’m all for upcycling but this truly was a makeover and a half, with little remaining of the original house able and sturdy enough to be used. I tasked Mr M with creating a new birdhouse and he disappeared into the outside shed, happy as Larry with a saw and some bits of left-over timber.

I went down after a few hours in the office and was bowled over. He’d worked a miracle and a new timber house was born. But wait…. what about if we…. could we…. look I’ve got this…. and this…. can we use this…. oh go on, lets do that…. it all went a bit OTT as my imagination went into overdrive 🙂

Before we knew it we had a Moregeous Mansion on our hands and after a weekend of dabbling, painting, glueing, staining and fancifying, here’s what we’ve come up with – the birdhouse to end all birdhouses and our very first new build together (tee hee, got you lot on Facebook, didn’t I?)……

As you can see the only bits left from the old house are the four vertical posts which have been sanded down and re-used as the corner posts. A large slab tile of travertine has been fixed onto the timber base, with a high pitched roof allowing a parquet floored mezzanine level for the little birds (no pigeons allowed!). Most of the timber has been painted in vanilla white gloss, with walnut stain to the internal staircase and posts. The decking roof has been painted with Farrow & Ball London Clay and the swimming pool fashioned from an old plastic base primed with ESP and painted royal blue. We made the staircases out of some old Ikea cd racks with the stairs to the swimming pool diving board sprayed with chrome spray and the diving board made from a stainless steel ridged tile. The pool even has it’s own plug!

I bloody love it! There may well be a garden, conservatory and extension in the pipeline 😉

There better be some good looking birds in this Playboy mansion pretty soon, or Mr M will not be a happy boy!