We gave a couple of birdhouse kits to the librarian at the Sparta-Hancock County Library in Sparta, Georgia. We expected them to get painted and set on a shelf somewhere. Instead she came back and asked for more, because she had ideas she wanted to finish.
What she built was a small town.
Every one is a business, and every business is a bird
One of the library staff took the whole set on and decorated every kit herself. She did not simply paint ten houses. She turned each one into a shop or a building on a street, and named each one after a bird you would see in Georgia.
- The Nuthatch Library, papered in real book pages, with a row of painted book spines along the front
- The Starling Theatre, with a marquee, stars around the door and four tiny film posters on the wall
- Gold Finch Fine Dining in bright yellow, with a goldfinch on the sign
- Rockin’ Robin Record Shop, striped awning, vinyl records on the wall, musical notes on the path and an OPEN sign
- King Fisher Bait Shop, with a fishing rod mounted on the roof and shells in the gravel
- Raven’s Estate Sale Jewelry, a black log cabin with gold leaves and a gold door
- Wood Duck Wood Shop, an open sided shop with a sign cut from a log round and a pile of tiny logs inside
- Tiny Hawk Surveillance, under a bark and moss roof, whose sign reads “We Stare Because We Care”. It is built from the outhouse kit, which is the joke
- Painted Bunting Supplies, an art shop in four colors with a palette, brushes and a row of pencils
- The Goose Down Inn, with a hanging sign and a dormer window
- The Nest Daycare, with a real twig nest tucked underneath and a white picket fence
- The Early Bird, a worm stand, filled with seed
The detail is the whole point
The houses are paired up on painted bases, each with a gravel road running past, grass, planting, stepping stones and in places a street lamp or a picket fence. The signs are done the way a real shop sign is done, so each house reads like a small advertisement for the bird that lives in it. Some carry a printed placard on the base as well, giving the name, the materials and the year, exactly like a label in a gallery.
She also made a booklet to go with the display, with opening hours for every business in the town.
None of that came in the box. The kits are plain cypress. Everything above is somebody sitting down with paint, glue, gravel and a good idea, and not stopping at the first coat.
Now they tour
The set stayed on display at Sparta for about four months. Rather than being packed away after that, it now travels around the Azalea Regional Library System, which has nine branches across Greene, Hancock, Jasper, Morgan, Putnam and Walton counties. When a branch wants them for a display, the birdhouses go.
Why a library could run this at all
A project like this works in a library because the kits need nothing a library does not already have. The parts are cut from solid cypress and the whole thing glues together, so there are no nails, no screws and no tools involved. Nobody needs a workshop, a saw or a safety briefing. A table, some glue and a free afternoon will do it.
That is also why they suit classrooms, scout meetings and summer programs. The building part is genuinely easy, and it is over quickly. The decorating is where the time goes, and that is the enjoyable half.
If you want to try it
Everything here started as one of our glue together kits, cut and inspected by hand in Rutledge, Georgia. The ten pack has one of each style, which is how you end up with a street rather than a row of identical houses.
If you would rather cut your own, our free Birdhouse Builder works out the full cut list for building birdhouses from standard cedar fence pickets, with entrance hole sizes and floor dimensions matched to the bird you are trying to attract. There is no sign up and nothing to install.
And if your library, school or group wants to run something similar, get in touch and we will help you work out what you need.