How to Make a Cardboard Playhouse
Build a Kid’s Indoor Fun Fort from Recycled Cereal Boxes
Nov 14, 2008
Use these playhouse designs to create a simple cardboard playhouse from recycled materials in one afternoon.
If your children yearn for an indoor playhouse, but you don’t want to invest in another piece of plastic that will become obsolete in a few years, consider building a playhouse out of recycled cereal boxes. This easy playhouse design requires no special tools or skills, just a few hours and large collection of cereal or snack cracker boxes.
The following playhouse plans will yield a structure that’s approximately five and a half feet long, four feet wide, and four feet tall. This children’s playhouse can accommodate at least three small children and their stuffed animal guests.
Materials
- 108 cereal or family-size snack cracker boxes
- Mini low temperature glue gun
- 30 mini all purpose round glue sticks
- 5-foot by 2-inch strip of industrial-strength self-adhesive Velcro
- 2-55 yard rolls clear packing tape
- ¼ yard of fabric, optional
Playhouse Plans
- Remove bags from all cereal boxes, and shake out any loose crumbs or cereal pieces. Seal the boxes by inserting the box top tab into the slot.
- Begin constructing the first sidewall, which will be six boxes long and four boxes high. Lay six cereal boxes side-by-side on the floor, and secure them together with dots of glue from the hot glue gun. It isn’t necessary to use a large amount of glue to fasten the boxes together, as the glue isn’t what gives the structure its strength. The purpose of the glue is to keep the boxes stable while you work on the wall.
- Construct the second row of the wall by gluing the bottom of six more cereal boxes to the tops of the first row of boxes. Don’t worry if the boxes on a row aren’t all the same size; make minor adjustments by stacking smaller boxes onto larger boxes, and vice versa. The fourth and final row will be a bit uneven on the top, but this doesn’t detract from the playhouse’s appeal. If the disparity in the size of cereal boxes creates one or two gaps in the wall, proclaim these “flaws” as mail slots.
- After you’ve secured four rows of six cereal boxes with the hot glue gun, use packing tape to reinforce each row of boxes horizontally and vertically. Use the tape on both sides of the wall for superior stability. Create an identical sidewall with four stacked rows of six cereal boxes. Then create the back wall, which is eight boxes long and four boxes high.
- The final wall must contain the crawl-through door, which consists of a space where four cereal boxes are left out. Construct this wall in two phases. First, make two stacked rows of three cereal boxes with the glue gun. Repeat this for the other side of the door. Next, make two stacked rows of eight cereal boxes. Finally, stack the long row of cereal boxes on the two smaller rows, leaving a gap that could hold four cereal boxes empty in the middle for the doorway.
- After all walls are reinforced with packing tape, use the self-adhesive Velcro to attach the walls together. The beauty of this design is that unlike other cardboard playhouses, the Velcro walls allow this one to collapse for storage.
- As a final flourish, attach the self-adhesive Velcro to a richly hued color scrap, and hang it in the doorway as a peek-a-boo flap.
The copyright of the article How to Make a Cardboard Playhouse in Reducing Waste is owned by Jamie McIntosh. Permission to republish How to Make a Cardboard Playhouse in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
