Country Cottage Birdhouse - Garden Project

This is one of my spring projects. It is not complete yet. I have one more thing to add which is a sign.

I got this idea from one of my garden magazines. My friend Carol was interested in it too. She had an old barn that collapsed and has been slowly burning the wood by having bonfires. I asked her if she had any wood left so we could build our own bird houses and she said yes. So we got together, gathered some wood (I think it was March), and let it dry out while we worked on trays. We could have bought bird houses and trays but why spend money if you don't have to?

I tried my hand at hypertufa the year before and still had some ingredients left over from that so we got together and made hypertufa trays. These needed a few months to cure so while they were curing we worked on building. Once the wood was dry we pulled out nails, cut off all rotted areas, sanded and made our blue prints, well. . . we put our basic ideas on paper. Basically, we were winging it! :) We did have to make a few purchases, like you need wire to staple on the roof to hold the moss, and you need moss :). I think those were the only things we had to buy other than a few plants for filler. However, most of the plants are perennials I dug up from the garden. The Thunbergia, growing on the trellis, I started from seed. I made the fence and trellis out of her barn wood and some floral wire.

"The Gathering" which is what the sign will say if I ever get things together and finish it. One hold up is, I can't decide if I want to hang it from the perch; put it against the front of the house under the perch; or over the doorway. Any suggestions?