How many times have you happened to go to a gardening store and see those cute prefabricated houses? Surely, having one could be an excellent entertainment alternative, especially for those with children.
Buying one of those houses, solely for recreational purposes, could be quite expensive, as the prices of these products can reach up to a thousand euros. Why not try creating one instead? In addition to saving on expenses, which would be reduced to the purchase of the necessary materials, you will also have a good opportunity to involve your children in a fun but constructive family activity.
This is absolutely not an impossible undertaking, but it won't be a walk in the park either, especially if you are not used to carrying out activities of this type. For this reason we want to help you with a short tutorial that will summarize the main steps.
Wooden houses
The idea of building a wooden house is certainly the most attractive and exciting one. To start, you can choose whether to buy wood or obtain it from trees. In the second case we advise you to find out which are the best trees from which to take wood for this type of use.
The materials
Once you have chosen the wood you need to obtain all the necessary tools: if you want to build a house of approximately 5 m2 and a maximum height of 250 cm you will need: 35 beams of the wood you have selected, measuring 5x5 cm, beads 3x15 cm, 20 round head bolts, 2 beams 4x4 cm, a beam 4x4 cm and 60 cm in height, twenty-eight corner pieces, nails self-tapping and a pair of hinges. As far as tools are concerned, however: measuring tape, ruler, screwdriver, jigsaw, pencil, claw hammer, starter and saw.
The construction
Now that we have all the materials, let's start building our little house. First we arrange the beams on the ground, in the shape of a quadrilateral, to create the floor. Once assembled, we must join the frame using self-tapping nails, fixing it for each corner of the quadrilateral using the corner pieces.
Now fix the infill board with other self-tapping screws and repeat this operation for each load-bearing structure, remembering to leave a passage for the entrance door in the front part. You can delimit this space, which will be as large as you like, using the 4x4 cm joists.
With the same procedure, create the roof and walls of your house which will be assembled to the floor, initially, even temporarily with self-tapping screws. In this way it will be easier for you to make holes between all the adjacent beams, which will subsequently be used to insert the panels, supported by the through bolts. To be clear, it will be appropriate to create three through holes which will then be joined together using the bolts.
Once the bolts are secured using washers inserted from both sides, you can remove the self-tapping screws, which were inserted only for support during the drilling process.
Now it's time to fill the cracks that have formed on the roof and walls using panels, triangular in the first case and quadrangular in the second case. You can secure the panels with screws.
At this point you will have to make a bead frame that you have already prepared. This frame must then be fixed to the door leaf using the hinges.
Since the house will be in the garden under all types of weather, we recommend keeping the roof covered with a bituminous sheet that you can fix using simple nails. Finally, pass an exterior primer over the entire surface of the structure.
Finally your little house is ready, now to make it complete and personalized you can arrange the interior in the way you prefer with games tables, shelves and decorations. Or you could choose a theme and make it, for example, the home of Harry Potter or the Pirates of the Caribbean!
