This is Jack Jones.  He spent a career as a logistics manager in the corporate world.  Now he buys the useful bits of old Pennsylvania barns and houses and makes one of a kind birdhouses.  We met him a few weeks ago and bought the birdhouse he is holding on the left in the picture above.   It has a glass doorknob from a Victorian era home.

Some of the birdhouses have old Pennsylvania license plates on the roof.  Jack told us that when a barn needed to be repaired that farmers used license plates to cover holes and weak spots.  Over the years the barns became veritable patchwork quilts with these pieces of metal helping to keep them together.  Today many of these old barns have outlived their usefulness, abandoned or falling apart from neglect.   You often see a barn in someone’s yard that no one ever bothered to maintain or tear down.  It stands there subject to the weather and the passage of time.  A barn is no good to anyone unless it is used and kept in good repair.

People like Jack are finding ways to re-use parts of the barns and old houses, recycling the pieces by making them into something that people can use and where a bird can find a warm home to shelter from the elements.  You can find out more about his work on his website here http://jjswoodcrafts.com.