Cardboard Play House

Over a year ago, we acquired a large cardboard box that had previously held a dishwasher.  We had cut a window in it and Little Guy had a lot of fun playing inside it for a while.  After a few weeks, his interest waned and the box went into our basement storage.  Last week he said he wished he had a house of his own.  I brought up the box and he was very excited about it.


The 1800 matches our own house number, and
the red mailbox is very similar to ours as well.



Although the plain box had been fun, I had a feeling we could do better.  So, I cut out a second window.  Then I covered most of the dishwasher wording with brown construction paper (except the "roof" which I covered with black paper). 

As soon as Little Guy saw the improvements he said that we needed a chimney - haha!  So, we took a small-ish box, and covered it with pink paper.  I drew on "bricks" and LG and I glued on a big stack of cotton balls for smoke.

By now, I was really having fun (maybe more than Little Guy was even).  I added a big tree (complete with perching blue bird), shutters, a fire hydrant and a mail box that looks quite similar to the one on our actual house.  We also added flowers all the way around.



Little Guy did complain a little bit that the shutters don't actually work, so there may be one more project in our future!  :)

Little Guy loves getting mail, and having us 'visit' him at his house.  He now has a pretend door bell and has wedged in some of his play furniture.  I helped him make a 'home sweet home' sign and we hung it (as well as another picture he'd drawn) inside.   

This has been a very fun project, and since we had all the supplies on hand - a totally free one as well! 

The cardboard play house is great, and I think we're done with 'improvements'...for now anyway.