03/24/2025
A Headline I Thought I’d Never See
“Trade War Affects Canada’s Teensiest Business in an Unanticipated Way”
Yep, Canada’s avoidance of US products has changed the way we create our tiny cottage-industry birdhouse business. It has become evident that we are going to have to ‘pivot’* the design of our proudly made-in-Canada Ferdaberds. But read on to discover how our Barrie endeavour has become the epitome of ‘elbows up’ philosophy, and how the trade war has made us even better!
When we began crafting our Ferdaberds birdhouses in 2021, we decided to use as much recycled, vintage, and upcycled material as we could find. Originally, we used wood recycled from other projects. Kevin the Carpenter dismantled unwanted antique and vintage furniture, sanded down what was salvageable, and built solid and functional birdhouses. (Currently, we’re using gorgeous pine from a wedding present we received 39 years ago). We had some old license plates that we used for roofs. And I begged for vintage buttons and made clay decorations so that each Ferdaberd would have its own personality.
We made our first Ferdaberd in January 2021, during the height of COVID. After posting pictures on social media, we began receiving requests for them. It wasn’t a business as much as a fun creative outlet. It was never meant to be a money maker. But we had a problem: we couldn’t find more Canadian license plates. Well, we could, but they were $10 - $22 apiece, and that didn’t make sense to use something that would double the price of the birdhouses. For a while, I was able to find them at auction—I’d buy one or two lots, and we were able to keep the cost to $5 or $6. Then they became ridiculously popular, and the cost skyrocketed. They were no longer a viable option.
We happened upon replica plates—the kind you might see in roadhouse bars and man caves. At first, they were inexpensive to purchase and wonderfully colourful, however, they only featured American states. Canadian replicas were not available. But the US ones looked terrific. March 2025, and the plates have become exorbitantly priced, and we can no longer afford them. And oh! Did I mention, these replicas aren’t American at all? Nope, they’re made in China. So that’s a whole other ball of wax.
Now it’s the end of March, we’ve been satisfying humans, chickadees, and sparrows for just over four years. We’re closing in on 170 Ferdaberds, and we recently had a request to paint over the US license plates. We have about two dozen plates in inventory and going forward we will be painting them all black. Happily, they look fantastic! But we will stop using them when this batch has run out, because with our current economic climate the cost of them will keep rising.
Kevin the Carpenter searched for an alternative and found corrugated steel. It looks great, is less expensive, is partly Canadian made, and comes in sheets that he can cut and sand as needed. The new roofs are sturdy and give a rustic look to our next-generation birdhouses.
Now, if you are a Ferdaberds fan and you’d like to order one, we can offer roof options! We can create your custom birdhouse with a black painted roof or a corrugated metal one—you get to choose! But that’s only until the license plates run out, so time is of the essence.
When we started making these adorable, fully functional little houses, we never dreamed we’d be caught in the middle of a trade war. Go figure. But then, we didn’t anticipate COVID either. I guess I’ll just say, life goes on—if we’re lucky, and we ‘pivot’ accordingly.
*see COVID, ‘pivot’, circa 2020
(pictured is a new Ferdaberd we created for our Legion's annual convention-- it features a piece of Canadian Shield granite, a penny from the Queen's Jubilee, two from 1957 (the first year the Queen's Christmas message was televised), amethyst and quartz from Thunder Bay, a Canadian Pacific button thx LB).
