Tube Cabin

The tubes used as cores for rolls or carpet and linoleum can be recycled for building materials for kids play forts.
The average diameter of a carpet tube is four inches, and if you drill into them sideways with a hole saw of the same diameter, it makes a saddle that allows one tube to sit perpendicular and flush overtop of the first.
When several are stacked this way they look just like the walls of a log cabin. Thinly cut log rounds glued into the ends complete the illusion.
By spacing wood dowels, which the tubes slide over, upright every three feet or so, the whole structure becomes rigid enough to handle kids bouncing off the walls.
The roof is made by cutting full tubes in half lengthwise and laying them overlapping alternately, with one half upside down as the cap
Each tube should be dipped in outdoor latex paint after all of the holes have been drilled to keep them from getting wet.

I had thought to make a scaled down Colonial Fort, you know, Nerf spikes on the tops of the outer walls and all that.


Did I mention that the tubes can be had for free?