Creating with cardboard

Given the amount of cardboard that has entered and exited the house (though thankfully the mover took all but two of the moving boxes and a huge stack of the cardboard we’d accumulate to that point), I thought some cardboard craftiness was in order. I’d seen a number of interesting ideas on Pintrest, but given my daughter’s fascination in child-sized houses lately I thought this was just the ticket.

The supplies, plus an entire roll of duct tape:
Supplies

The framework begins:
Playhouse beginnings

And from the side:
Playhouse beginnings -- side view

The main house and the ‘mudroom’ entryway were created with the two moving boxes that were not hauled away when the movers left, whilst the roofs were supplied by Ikea shelves. The skylight is made with some plastic from a box of toy cars. And duct tape.

Playhouse

I added in four windows plus the skylight to allow as much light into the house as possible. During the day she gets enough light to easily play or read in the house, which is exactly what I wanted.

The non-functional chimney was the cut out from the skylight. My daughter was a bit disappointed the chimney didn’t have proper wood smoke coming out of it, but sometimes there is no pleasing a four year old.

Chimney details

She did forgive me about the wood smoke thing and is quite delighted with her playhouse.

Playhouse

Four year old added for scale.

Comments

That’s fabulous!

Elizabeth · 14 November 2011, 08:12 · #

Very inventive! I’m sure my 4 year old would be very excited as well (in fact, I may have to try your design). Great post!

Ray · 17 November 2011, 06:16 · #