House Wren House Plans: Dimensions, Cut List and Mounting

How to read the house wren house plans sheet

Two drawings and a cut list make up the sheet. The first drawing is the front panel as seen from outside. The black disc is the entrance. The dashed line across the lower part is the floor level inside the box, which sits slightly above the bottom edge because the floor is recessed. The dashed frame around the hole marks the band where the center of the hole may be; the figure beside it is the band’s height above the floor, here 4 to 6 inches.

The second drawing is a side section, showing the interior depth from floor to roof underside, the width of the side panel and the wall thickness as dashed lines outside the box. The cut list below the drawings gives each part’s width and length and the board it comes from.

The unit switch changes every label between inches and millimeters together. The drawing itself does not change.

Sourced dimensions for a house wren box

The comparison of several species is on the birdhouse plans and placement page. For the wren box:

• Entrance hole: 1 inch, round. NestWatch’s species page and Oregon State both say 1 inch. NestWatch’s entrance-size chart gives 1 1/8 inches for the same bird, and NC State lists a 1 to 1 3/8 inch group range. The sheet draws 1 inch, the figure on the species page, which also falls inside the other two.
• Floor: 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches. NestWatch. Oregon State’s 4 by 4 and NC State’s 4 1/2 by 5 are minimums, and this floor exceeds both.
• Interior depth: 8 inches. NestWatch calls it “Nest Box Depth (inside)”. Oregon State and NC State say 6 to 8, which contains it.
• Mount height: 5 to 10 feet. NestWatch and NC State agree. Oregon State says 6 to 10.
• Setting: forest, open woodland, shrub or town, with the box within 100 feet of woody vegetation, per NestWatch.

NestWatch does not spell out what its depth figure measures. The sheet reads it as floor to roof underside, as the side section shows.

Entrance height above the floor: two agencies agree

This is the one box of the three where the entrance height is not contested. NC State Extension gives a hole height of 4 to 6 inches, and Oregon State Extension gives an entrance height above the floor of 4 to 6 inches. The two are separate agencies and say the same thing. NestWatch’s species page gives no height of its own.

The dashed frame on the sheet therefore spans 4 to 6 inches. It still appears as a band rather than a single dimension because the sources give a range, and a builder is free to set the hole center anywhere inside it.

Features every box needs

From NestWatch’s features page, and valid for each box on these sheets:

• No perch, since it is unnecessary for the birds and can help predators.
• At least four drainage holes in the floor.
• Ventilation near the top of the side walls.
• A hinged side or a removable panel for cleaning.
• A floor recessed at least 1/4 inch.
• Walls at least 3/4 inch thick.
• A roof overhanging the front by 2 to 4 inches and the sides by 2 inches.

The sheet gives no diameters for the drainage and ventilation holes. The agencies disagree about both, so a single figure would be misleading.

Cut list and assembly order

What follows is how the cut list was laid out, not a requirement from the sources. The sides are placed between the front and the back, so the front and back are 7 inches wide: the 5 1/2 inch floor plus 3/4 inch of wall on each side. The sides are 5 1/2 inches wide, a full 1x6, and the floor is 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches.

Each upright panel is 8 1/4 inches tall: the 8 inch interior depth plus the 1/4 inch floor recess. Before saw kerf, the box takes 22 inches of 1x6 and 16 1/2 inches of 1x8. The front and back come from the wider board, ripped to 7 inches.

The order is straightforward. Cut all five parts. Drill the entrance, the four drainage holes and the ventilation holes. Seat the floor between the sides with a 1/4 inch recess. Attach the sides between the front and back, make one side or the roof openable, and add the roof. The roof is not dimensioned on the sheet.

Placement and mount height for a wren box

The wren tolerates a wide spread of settings, from woodland to town yards, but NestWatch sets one condition on position: within 100 feet of woody vegetation. Mounting height is 5 to 10 feet. A wren box with a 1 inch hole sits at the small end of the range of entrance sizes on the chickadee plan, where the hole is 1 1/8 inches, and well below the 1 1/2 inch hole of the eastern bluebird plan. Anyone mounting several boxes should check that spacing and sparrow guidance on the main birdhouse page.

How these figures were set

The entrance hole, floor, interior depth and mount height come from the Cornell Lab NestWatch house wren species page, compared with Oregon State and NC State Extension. Lumber widths are from the Southern Pine Inspection Bureau. The panel sizes and lumber lengths are arithmetic on those figures for one standard construction: sides between front and back, 3/4 inch boards, floor recessed 1/4 inch. The roof is not dimensioned. Where sources give different values they are shown as a range. Limits: local conditions differ, and a regional nest-box program may advise changes. Reviewed 2026-10-06.