Modern · Plan No. K-7

The Kestrel-7

A cantilevered mid-century response to suburban nesting anxiety.

$340

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The Kestrel-7 takes as its premise that a bird, like a homeowner, deserves a structure whose cantilever is load-bearing in fact and not merely in appearance. The nesting chamber floats eleven inches off its mounting post on a single steel bracket, a decision our structural consultant called "unnecessary" and we have chosen to interpret as encouragement.

Developed across four revisions and one difficult conversation about roof pitch, the K-7 resolves the central tension of mid-century nesting architecture: a flat roof reads as serious, but a flat roof also fails to shed water, and we have found no bird willing to discuss this trade-off with us directly.

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A clean, minimalist cedar tower-form birdhouse hanging outdoors.

Specification Sheet

FOOTPRINT6.25" × 6.25"

OVERALL HEIGHT17.5" incl. cantilever

ENTRY DIAMETER1.25" (chickadee / titmouse spec)

PRIMARY MATERIALVertical-grain Douglas fir

HARDWAREPowder-coated steel cantilever bracket

FINISHRaw, oil option available

DIFFICULTYAdvanced · requires bracket fabrication

SHEETS INCLUDEDElevation, section, cut list, hardware schedule

A Note on the Cantilever

We are aware that a birdhouse does not require a cantilever. We are also aware that a house does not require a great many things it nonetheless has, and we have chosen to hold the Kestrel-7 to that standard rather than the other one. The bracket is rated to eleven times the completed structure's dead load, which is either overengineering or the only appropriate response to a client base that has never once returned a plan set to tell us it was too strong.

Materials Note

We specify vertical-grain Douglas fir for the chamber and roof panel because it takes an oil finish evenly and because "we specify plywood" is not a sentence this studio is currently prepared to say out loud. The cut list assumes a single 1x8 board, twelve linear feet, with roughly 9% waste factored in for a client who has never used a miter saw and roughly 2% for a client who has.

Assembly Notes

The cantilever bracket must be fabricated or sourced prior to chamber assembly. We do not sell the bracket. We have thought about this and decided against it.
Roof reveal is intentional. Do not caulk the reveal. The reveal is load-bearing to the design's argument, if not to the roof.
Entry diameter is fixed at 1.25" per plan. Do not enlarge for "bigger birds." This has never gone well for anyone.