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GreycieMae's Sunroom-Aviary


SRSeedBurners

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5 hours ago, Greywings said:

Wonder if the plants will need to be a low light variety?  Looking very nice so far!!

Not sure if the plants currently there are even safe to be around birds.  I hate to remove them as one is planted above our beloved Raven that we lost four years ago and the other is planted above Pickles, the bird my daughter lost.  We may have to find something else to plant above our lost babies.

4 hours ago, Acappella said:

It looks great.  I think it's going up pretty quickly, though it must feel like it's dragging on for you.  I think it's a fine use of the money you inherited, and I know the birds will agree.  This is what love looks like.  Lucky fids.

It is what love looks like.   I've been hanging on looking for something special to spend it on and it just dropped in our lap.  Imagine a car would probably have lost half the value already on it's way to valueless.

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I believe it is a Pride of Barbados.  I was hoping it could stay because it would really appreciate the warmer enclosure during the winter and wouldn't die back to the ground every year.   I've seen pics where they start to look like small trees.  SHooot.

 

I need to find some safe jungle style plants for GreycieMae to sit in and proclaim herself Queen of the African savannah sunroom.

Edited by SRSeedBurners
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Walls and roof are fully enclosed on the 'littles' room as I call it.  It's trimmed out on the inside but still needs some finishing on the outside.  Also waiting for the tiling tie-in and then it can be painted and the door put on.

 

Inside:

Walls02.jpg

 

Outside:

Walls03.jpg

 

And the Greybie GreycieMae's room.   Did I mention that working with insulation is an itchy job? 

 

Walls01.jpg

 

Walls04.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Construction is finished and the paint is dry!!!     Looks better with all the tools and stuff gone!    We're not sure about the paint color though.   I'm thinking of two-toning the wall the darker grey in a strip near the bottom.    I still need to wire some lights and cameras into the soffits.     We're totally in love with it.   The birds - well Rio hates it.   GreycieMae and Toby are exploring.  Rio thinks his place is in the kitchen and it drives him bonkers that he can hear momma in the kitchen and he's not in the middle of it.  

 

Now I need to outfit it with safety screens and hang some toys/perches/ropes plant some safe plants, grow some rye grass...

The double sliding glass door and walling in the existing porch was the smartest thing we did.  Those weren't originally in the plans.   We love it.

GreycieMae's sunroom/aviary is now open for business!

 

FinishConst%20(1).jpg

 

FinishConst%20(2).jpg

 

FinishConst%20(3).jpg

 

FinishConst%20(4).jpg

 

 

Edited by SRSeedBurners
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Here you go @Ray P:   two quick and dirtys.  I'm in the middle of making some cotton climbing nets so don't have time to edit or anything...

* Sorry about the size of the video.   I haven't figured out what tags this new forum supports yet so I'm stuck with direct embed of the link and it does whatever the heck it wants with it. *

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by SRSeedBurners
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Thanks Howardine (I hope I remembered that right!).   Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your Precious too!

 

We are currently in the build process of the first of several cotton climbing nets to adorn the facilities. Now that my back porch is part of the aviary, I have help - lots and lots of help :) 

As with anything I do, the design takes agonizingly long compared to the actual build.   In case anyone wants to know, a climbing rope box knot sucks up 5 inches out of every 12 on 1/2" rope :P

 

Net looks kind of small in the pic but when done it should be 5'x5' with some overage on the ends.  You know how danged expensive good climbing ropes are online and they're so small!   Foster's & Smith current price on a 30"x30" is $45.   I'd need three of those to cover the area of this one net I'm building.  Plus their holes are too small for Greys.

 

ClimbingNet.thumb.jpg.f6de5c2b5c6cc0dd30bdea327525417a.jpg

Edited by SRSeedBurners
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On ‎10‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 7:06 PM, SRSeedBurners said:

You all know I have a spoiled rotten African Grey. Well, she's about to get spoiled even more. Let this be a long running thread, cause I'm going to post photos as this progresses.

 

First the background:

 

- my wife went back to work last year around December. Before that my birds had the run of the house and their outside aviary. Wifey was home to watch them for three years. When she went back to work I was forced to lock them up in their cages, in their bird room. I know this is probably what most people do, but I can't handle that. I watch them from my camera while I'm at work and it's heart breaking to see a Grey, who is normally so playful and full of life, just sit there slumped on a perch for 8-10 hours just waiting for one of us to come home.

 

- my maternal Grandmother, just before she died, sat me down and had a talk with me. Something I was never expecting, she gave me a sizeable amount of money and asked me to use it for a car. I think she felt bad because I had bought her old car a few years prior and it was always giving us trouble, to this day I'm constantly tearing something out of it and fixing it. It's about to hit the 20 year mark and nearly a quarter million miles. I told her that I didn't want the money because I hate spending money on cars as they depreciate to nothing in 10-15 years. To me, a car is the worst way to spend money. She asked me to take the money anyway and do something special with it.

 

- I have always been very frugal. When I was in the Marines and 17 years old, it took me over three years to save my first thousand dollars. This was a time when my breakfast before heading to base was 1 bowl of the $0.60 box of corn flakes we could buy at the commissary. We could barely buy anything but I was still trying to save and when I got that first thousand dollars I wanted to bury it in the front yard of my base housing unit. Sounds a little crazy but that's me and I'd never had any money before.

 

So around a year ago, it just came to me what I should do with that cash that Grandma gave me...I'm going to build that addition onto the house for my babies. And should both of us pass on unexpectedly, it's something my daughter can easily take over and my birds won't have to get tossed into the wind. Something that has bothered me ever since I got GreycieMae.

 

I've gone through four contractors who I had out to look at what I wanted. We've NEVER had any luck with contractors for other jobs that I don't have the time to do myself. Without getting into the details, they never do what they say they will or what you pay them to. And it usually involves people who pretend not to understand English. So out of the blue my wife asks me to contact this other guy she knows about. I don't know where the hell she found him but he is the REAL DEAL. He sat down and told me what I wanted and I was lapping it right up. He is semi-retired and only does "small jobs". He has apparently been involved in very large projects but I'm not sure how large.

 

A few interesting notes about this contractor:

- he's a very religious man. He told me prior to bidding the job that he would not be able to work on Wednesdays as he uses that day to perform his church duties. He's always fasting. And he uses no crew except his home-schooled grandson on Mondays and Fridays. I could not believe the day he showed up to start trenching and he pulled a bunch of digging tools out of his truck and just started ripping ground - manually. He's 66 years old. Can you believe that? I am still dumbfounded every day when I see him show up and start laboring away. He reminds me of my Dad who is near 80 years old and is THE hardest working man I've ever seen. They are both apparently cut from the same generational cloth.

 

 

The purpose behind this new addition is, I'm hoping I can keep them inside in it, separated from each other and they won't have to live their daily life in a cage. My wife hates it that we can never go anywhere or do anything anymore because I feel 100% neglectful asking my birds to stay in lockup while we go have fun. That isn't fun for me. All I ever do is worry about them. It will have cameras and lights, just like their bird room and I'll be able to monitor them while we're out - at work, at play, whatever.

 

So I'll use this thread to post photos as we go along. Let's hope this doesn't turn into a disaster. You never know how a project will go!

A lot of what you've said resonates loudly for me. We've committed to providing our fids with the best 'captured life' that we could possibly provide them. At least that's the way I've always looked at it. They give to us so much, and it is our responsibility to provide them with the best living environment we can possibly provide to them. If only more bird owners embraced their care the way that you have.

I, too, agonize over the amount of 'in cage' time they must endure. With that being said, I'm also in the process of building an outdoor aviary that I hope will enhance their worlds.

Nicely done, SR Seed Burners! Nicely done.

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