Sunday, May 3, 2009

Update: Belt Chair & Terra Cotta Bird Bath

Update: Finished the belt chair. The back of the chair definitely needed some help so I decided to finish that. How's it look? :) Better, I think.

We started with a bird feeder a couple weeks ago and now we have a swarm of songbirds that live in our yard. I love that morning bird chatter.. the cats love it too. I've been looking at a bird bath but they're so expensive... it's just a bird bath.. not a whirlpool.. so I decided to create my own bird bath. I saw a couple ideas to stack them on top of each other but I wasn't really moved by them. Tried my own little project.



A quick rundown of how I made it:

I bought (4) 8" terra cotta clay pots, (1) 18" saucer, and (1) 10" saucer. I sprayed Thompson's Water Sealant on all the pots & saucers inside and out to waterproof them. Using EcoGlue I began stacking the pots, starting with the small saucer and one pot. Let it dry for about 45 min before stacking the next pot. Also, I placed a textbook on top to weight the glue down not leaving any cracks. Adding the saucer last I sprayed it. I want to add more to it. Soon... I finished coating it with a water-based polyurethane coat. Added some rocks and water and the now birds are partying. Tweet. :)

3 comments:

Charter School Council said...

How easy is it to clean I find that my birdbath needs to be cleaned like once every three days and is there something you put in the water so that it doesn’t go bad as quick

Anonymous said...

Dear Charter School Council - I would tilt the saucer filled with dirty water as much as you can to allow as much dirty water as possible to drain out. Then I would use the garden hose to refill with fresh water, letting the remaining dirty water come up from the rocks as you refill and spill out over the sides until you were reasonably sure you had enough fresh water. You have to look at it like dirty bath water. There is nothing you can add to bath water to keep it clean. You have to drain the tub and refill with fresh water each time : ).
This is what I do with my regular bird bath (which is shallow and does not have rocks). I tilt the saucer with out removing it from its' stand and then use my garden hose to rinse and refill without removing the saucer. Every now and then I put bleach and water in it and let it sit for 20 minutes or so to give it a good sanitizing. I make sure to rinse several times to remove every last bit of the bleach water and then refill. Keep an eye on it while you are sanitizing so birds don't get into it : )..Good luck!

Unknown said...

Шикарная вещь! Просто и изящно. Лучше на солнце ставить или в тени?