plans/construction ideas for lightweight wendy house

[The Night Tripper]

Hi chaps I'm contemplating building a Wendy house for the grand-daughter. This would be an alternative to buying one of the 'Little Tykes' playhouses. There are quite a few plans around on the 'net (mostly American), but they all seem to be pretty serious construction - almost like building a small shed. I had in mind something semi-portable, that could be fairly easily dismantled and moved or put away.

I wondered about constructing open frames from something like 2"x2" and then strectching/stapling fabric over them, a bit like sets in the theatre I guess. Has anyone done something like this, or got any better ideas?

Thanks a lot J^n

[Owain]

You could use a tent-like construction of plastic poles (yellow gas pipe?) or bamboo poles with corner connectors fed into seams in fabric.

Or sew a 5-sided box up in canvas and put it over a convenient table (with the open side at the ground).

Or get large correx sheets and cut them to intersect.

Owain

[dennis]

Buy a plastic green house and paint it to look like a Wendy house.

Now anyone recommend paints for use on clear PVC?

[David WE Roberts]

The tent idea should work - many years ago my mother made something similar for the grandkids out of cloth and (IIRC) broom handles and stuff. These days I would suggest looking at fibreglass tent poles for the frame - much lighter than 2*2 and not very expensive in camping shops. However I would first check to see how much 'play tents' are because I suspect someone may already be filling this niche. In fact

up a large number of variations at under £20. I think you would be hard pressed to beat that price for the equivalent DIY construction.

So, what are your requirements? How big? How robust? Indoor/outdoor/outdoor+waterproof?

You could go with 2*2 bracketed together to make a frame then covered with cloth or heavyweight plastic. I made a couple of 3' * 3'6" dummy window frames to build round before fitting the final plastic windows. These were from 1.75" * 1.75" which is probably nominal 2*2 with right angle brackets screwed at each corner. Black plastic DPC sheet stapled over for weather tightness. Still there behind the shed (just went and measured) because they look 'useful'.

Do be aware that if you use a rigid construction method such as this then the storage of the frame will be a pain as it will take up quite a lot of space.

HTH

Dave R

[george [dicegeorge]]

25 broom handles make a pentagon base dome, joints made of three 6inche lengths of hosepipe bolted together in the middle. [g]

[Andrew Gabriel]

If it's really PVC, you want the old style (high volatiles) gloss paint, top coat only. It solvent-welds into the surface of PVC, and so will never come off. Great for painting PVC soil stacks, etc. No idea if the replacement low volatiles product works, but wouldn't surprise me if it didn't.

Just don't let the grand-daughter smoke in there...

[The Night Tripper]

Yes, I take the point that there may be cheaper ways than making one. That's not always the most important thing though...

'play tent' looks like a good search term, thanks for that ;-)

Yes, I know. If there was a way of getting a decent 'kit of parts' for a demountable frame, similar to fibreglass tent poles (there'd need to be jointing pieces as well), that would be great ... but I haven't found anything so far. Closest is this 'spare frame' set:

Cheers J^n

[The Night Tripper]

Hmm, the 'merkins seem to be quite big on 'furniture grade PVC tubing' for making things like this:

the equivalent in the UK looks like it would cost a fortune...

J^n