Building a barn owl box

I don't remember what gave me the idea of building owl nest boxes. Maybe it was after visiting a rather sad owl sanctuary in the west country which my wife Jill was really uncomfortable with (although I was able to get some good owl photos), possibly this made me realise that we no longer have owls around where I live. Anyway, I decided to make a Tawny owl box (Dutch letterbox design) and the local council kindly agreed to put it in a nearby field that they own. That led to my being asked if I'd like to made some Barn owl boxes for them, and so I agreed.

I looked around on the Internet for a suitable design. The simplest type is the A-frame, but I don't really like this because the bottom corners seem wasted space, unusable by the owls and places where all manner of crud will accumulate. The Barn Owl Trust has what looks to be a well designed box and that's what I'm making. As well as providing plans, their website also contains step-by-step pictures of construction which are very helpful but probably don't contain everything you need to know. At least one thing not covered is how to lay out and cut the pieces needed from a single sheet of plywood, and so I've had to do this myself as shown below.

Cut all the pieces out. I normally like to use a panel saw for woodworking but I decided a jigsaw would give a cleaner (and thinner) cut. The cut edges can be cleaned up with a plane. Eventually some of the edges will need to be bevelled a bit (top of sides, front and back, and the ends of the base. This will be evident when you assemble the box.


The notes on the diagram above give a few tips, including how to cut out the front and back trapezoids without resorting to Pythogras!