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Help Me Turn My Home Into an Awesome Fort
Sir Landshark
resting shark faceRegistered User regular
resting shark faceRegistered User regular
Hey guys, so my wife is going on a girls trip for 4 days, and I'll be taking off work to watch my three kiddos (ages 7, 5, 4). Something I thought would be super fun to do with them is turn our entire house into a fort!
So I'm just looking for helpful ideas. Right now, I'm planning to do an inventory of all the extra bedsheets we have and maybe pick up a few more for cheap at Target or whatever. Probably get some push-pins for attaching the sheets to walls, and I'll tuck sheets into beds and hampers and so on, like I remembering doing as a kid.
So if you have any fun, creative, and preferably cheap ideas for turning our house into a sweet fort, let me have them!
So I'm just looking for helpful ideas. Right now, I'm planning to do an inventory of all the extra bedsheets we have and maybe pick up a few more for cheap at Target or whatever. Probably get some push-pins for attaching the sheets to walls, and I'll tuck sheets into beds and hampers and so on, like I remembering doing as a kid.
So if you have any fun, creative, and preferably cheap ideas for turning our house into a sweet fort, let me have them!
Please consider the environment before printing this post.
+10
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Shark, have you thought about this?
Serious suggestion: Maybe get one of those star projector things and have it project onto the sheet ceiling of the fort?
or get some nets and play ocean sounds and get one of those ocean projectors for the ceiling
UNDA DA SEA
Psh, the house has plenty of smoke detectors and those new light bulbs give off like no heat, should be fine.
This is good yes yes.
I still have a giant (maybe 8'x4'x4') box in the storage area that I can get out and put in one of the rooms. wall off the sides with pillows and hang sheets over the top, cut a hole in the front and back for access through to the next part of the fort.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I'd love it if you took a look at my art and my PATREON!
Also you should mix it up with the building materials. Have some walls built from pillows, use furniture strategically, use baby gates here and there, etc.
Oh yeah multiple mini rooms and tunnels is definitely the plan. Good idea with the baby gates, I think we still have some in storage!
Will do!
When I was younger, my brother and I used a bunch of empty moving boxes to make various tunnels in the basement; and later added portholes and windows. That was some good times. We had that thing set up for probably 8 or 9 months.
Edit: Bonus points if you can set up a barrier near the front door for you and the kids to hide behind and leave a nerf gun and shield for your wife, for when she gets home.
Edit 2: I forgot! Said YT channel also turned one of their sets of stairs into a slide by putting flat cardboard on it and placing pillows at the bottom. Granted, they live in a split-level, so their slide wasn't long enough to cause injury. Still, it was pretty awesome.
In my experience, the ideal fort is a mix of old sheets, cardboard boxes, and then whatever "extras" you have. The family I baby-sat for had a bunch of those spring-up play things (like castles and tunnels) so I used those in place of boxes. Exercise mats are good if you have those for some reason, too. (They work as a fort-liner to make the floor more comfortable, or you can turn it on it's side and use it as a supporting wall.)
Old bed-sheets seem like a pain to work with at first, but if you employ jump ropes and clothes pins they aren't an issue. (You can probably substitute string for the jump ropes.) The ropes hold the sheets up so the ceiling doesn't sag, clothes pins attach the sheets to chairs and stuff without the need of knots. You can also use that trick of inflating a fitted sheet with a fan.
Boxes are great, but they don't let in much light which can be a problem. They're also not as durable as you'd think, because as parts get compressed/bent they don't hold their shape as well. They aren't good for fast-crawling if you're playing something involving chase.
I think the ideal fort would have cardboard turrets with a sheet running over the top & sides, with jump ropes/string employed to keep the top sheet from sagging. Clothespin the sheets to keep them in place. Cut windows in the boxes so the kids can see. Line the bottom with pillows and other fun stuff. That would act as the main area- the place the kids can hang out without the negatives that typically go with a fort (cramped interior, sagging ceiling, etc.) Then add on tunnels to outpost areas and whatnot for the fun of rushing to different rooms and secret spaces. Make sure the kids can make beds/nests/special areas for themselves and their favorite toys.
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But having a fun structure is only half of what makes a fort fun. Forts need to be special, almost secretive places that don't feel like slightly-less convenient (but cooler) versions of your home. That's why beds/nests/special areas are so important. It needs to feel like your special, fun place that has it's own set of rules. I mean, what's the point of a fort if you're gonna just sit in it & watch TV?
So you need activities. Like, regular clothes are optional. The kids can wear dress-up all day long in the fort, and you'll all have a contest to see who can dress and act the silliest.
Or, there are special fort snacks the kids can eat in the fort. Maybe you play a game, where you "guard" the snacks, and the kids "steal" them and eat them in their special fort. They don't have to be unhealthy because feeling like you've stolen the snack makes it taste better. Like, you could pretend the kids are bunnies and you're Mr. Mcgregor trying to keep them from getting into a bowl filled with baby carrots & apple slices. (Like in Peter Rabbit.) My mom used to play this with us. (Although she gave us prosciutto and it was only on special occasions.)
You guys can do shadow puppets. Or come up with a secret code, write messages in it, and hide the messages around the fort for fun. Maybe after the kids are in bed for the night, you set up a treasure hunt in the fort. Maybe you buy some plaster of paris, and little fun "treasure" type things, and some saftey goggles, and let the kids hammer through the plaster of paris for surprises outside.
Stuff like that can vastly increase how fun a fort is.
Then she can't be mad at the mess!
No really.
We started in the living room/dining room area and connected several fort elements. The entrance is at the bottom, where I put some of our Build-Abouts together (basically this cardboard fort-building set you can buy online, we had gotten the kids a set for Christmas a while ago). This was used as the costume changing room later (inspired by Mario Odyssey). The Build-Abouts connected to a toy teepee/tent, which I draped with blankets to seal off from the outside. Then we used one of those play tunnels to connect to another fort underneath the dining room table, which was my daughter's home base for mostly doing a lot of coloring, decorating, and the occasional surprise attack on Dad.
Next phase was putting together some larger forts in the family room/play room area. My oldest child laid claim to the massive plotter box that I had laying in storage, so we laid some sheets over it and I cut a door at one end. He put up a "passcode" that needed to be punched in to grant access (spoiler alert, the passcode was "FORT").
Second child got the other big plotter box, and again I cut him a hole for entrance in the bottom corner. The boys used these two forts as a home base for waging war and retreating to safety when we played various games like Lynel chase, Lynel attack, Battle the Lynel, etc (inspired by Zelda BotW).
The final phase was to put together forts in the upstairs bedrooms. The goal was to connect them all via the hallway, but we didn't get around to it.
All in all, a super fun weekend, and one they hopefully will remember for a long time!
Tagging @cambiata because you specifically requested photos.