I just finished the carpentry part of the first bat house. My dad and I took the pieces of cedar and plywood we cut earlier today and screwed them together as per Rob Mies' online instructions. The angles we cut in the wood were good as it all fit together quite nicely and it was easy to drill and screw together the bat house. It was a good learning opportunity, gaining first hand experience with all of my dad's various carpentry tools. I suppose it was unfortunate that I learned the hard way which end was which on the staple gun, but I'm sure my finger will heal soon. The one thing I noticed, however, was how large the end result was. I had known from the beginning that it would be two feet by two feet, but just how much bigger it was than the bat houses sold by the OBC hadn't registered. I definitely think that now I see the size of my first bat house, I will split the second one in half and make three bat houses as that would make my products, smaller lighter, generally easier to deal with, and possibly also more attractive to the bats because they will want to keep close together to keep warm and safe from predators. This taught me that I should always stop and think about what my end result will be in a project and what will the implications of that be before I dive in headlong and only realize later that I've made a mistake. I don't think this size discrepancy will pose any real problem other than finding a location to hang my oversized bat house, but it would have been nice to plan ahead and know what I'm going to end up with.
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