There are lots of little details that need to be figured out, like what kind of latch you want for the door, which direction you want the door to swing, do you want some permanent hooks to hang up toys or branches for chewing, where will you put the food bowls and how will you attach them, and what kind of perches you're going to put in and how you're going to attach them. I used natural tree branches for perches and attached them the way they show you at this link: http://www.mdvaden.com/bird_perches.shtml I put screws on both ends in most cases because the perches were so long, but in some cases the branch had a little skinny tip on one end that was too small to put a screw in so I just stuck it through the wire instead.

If you're hiring a professional to do the job, he might be able to buy the materials wholesale. Contractors often get a cheaper price than the general public does.

My aviary doesn't have a lot of special amenities but it does have a boardwalk at the top that the birds love, and it has a wire shelf that's very practical for me. The birds like to hang out on it too. You can see pictures at http://home.comcast.net/~ch_zonie/craft ... tml#aviary There are probably some special features that you'd like to have, and now is the time to think about them.

Very informative page Carolyn.

What do I put on the gap of the roof? If I put the roof on the sides, there will be an empty hole on the front and back.

I think you mean the triangular area created by the slope of the roof on either side. You could cover that with hardware cloth to be like the rest of the aviary walls, or if you wanted to make a more sheltered area you could cover it with wood planks or some other solid material.

If you want to have a safety door (which I recommend), that takes a fair amount of planning. You have to figure out how big it needs to be, which means figuring out what you're going to do in it. In my case, I would open the outer door, walk in with a transport cage, set the cage down, close the outer door, open the inner door, pick up the cage and walk through. My safety corridor is inside the aviary, so every inch of corridor was an inch taken away from the bird area. I figured out that it was most efficient if the outer door opened toward the outdoors and the inner door opened into the bird area, because I'd need a longer corridor if the door opened into the corridor. But then I had to make sure there was nothing in the bird area that would interfere with the inner door when I opened it. So I placed the wire shelf and the perches where the door wouldn't hit them.

You said previously that you'd like to be able to deal with the food dishes from outside. Doing it from the safety corridor would minimize the risks of escape without you having to go all the way into the bird area, but you'll probably need more space to do this comfortably than you'd need for just walking in and out. So figure out everything that you're likely to do frequently in the safety corridor and design for that.

P.S. Don't buy hardware cloth from Home Depot. Their rolls are short, and the price per foot is a lot cheaper with a longer roll. I got mine on Amazon, but if you have a good local building-supply store you might be able to get it at a good price there.

The standard widths are 2 feet, 3 feet, and 4 feet. I got the 4-foot width because my aviary is 4 feet wide, but if your aviary is 6 feet then the 3-foot width might be more efficient for you.

The standard roll length is 5 feet, 10 feet, 50 feet and 100 feet. So figure out which one has enough wire to cover the aviary. 19 gauge is the standard wire thickness, and you can cut pieces to the right size with a simple pair of wire cutters.

Something else to watch out for on wood measurement: the widths are rounded off. Those so-called 2x2 inch furring strips are actually 1.5 by 1.5, and the widths on other sizes of lumber are rounded off too. The best way to find the real width is to go to a place like Home Depot and measure the wood. So if you're looking for screws to fasten two furring strips together, 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 inches long is a good length. That will go completely through one and penetrate deeply into the second one without going all the way through. If you're looking for a screw to fasten something to a furring strip without going all the way through it, the part of the screw that penetrates the wood needs to be less than 1 1/2 inches long.

The lengths are generally accurate, if it says 8 feet long you should get 8 feet.

Sorry, I just can't stop posting suggestions lol. After you think you have your final plans, show them to a person who's knowledgeable about construction and get their advice. And I don't mean me! I'll be happy to take a look at it but I don't actually know very much about construction, and a person who really knows what they're doing might have good ideas for making the plan even better. This might be your grandfather, a helpful person at Home Depot, a friendly "do it yourself" forum and/or the person that's being hired to do the work.

Here are a couple of websites with nice examples of drawing up plans. I don't like the actual aviary at this one but they drew the plans up beautifully: http://www.internationaldovesociety.com ... ngCage.htm Notice how they used graph paper to help keep their lines straight, and a ruler will be a big help too.

The plans on this thread aren't as snazzy-looking, but they wrote in the dimensions and some descriptive information which is helpful: http://www.tailfeathersnetwork.com/comm ... -And-Build! Further down the thread they added a diagram of what they were going to do with the interior.

If you decide to go with a wood roof you could paint it a nice color on the top. Don't put paint on areas the birds can reach, but paint on the top will help protect the wood from the weather. If there's a lot of direct sunlight in that area you could paint it white to help reflect the heat, and if it's shady you could go for a color that looks good and fits in well with the rest of the house.

Thank you. I understood everything you said. I had trouble understanding it at first, so I took a break and came back after a couple of hours with success.

Oops, we posted at the same time. Thank you so much for the plans. I was having so much trouble figuring out how to make them. I will take a look.

What don't you like about the plans for the first link? I want to know because I don't want to follow the mistake but rather to learn from it.