DIY Urban Camping: A Parent-Friendly Guide to Homemade Hideouts

By kat rutkin, June 10, 2014

DIY_kids_play_tent_urban_camping_kat_rutkin

Summer is finally here, and I can’t help but daydream about camping. I really love ~~camping~~ the idea of camping. Cozy sleeping bags, cute little portable eating and cooking gear. How fun!

And then I remember that being a mom already involves too many days when I’m unable to shower and have to eat undercooked food while crouching over something that might be on fire. At the end of the day, the last thing I need to do is sleep on top of a tangle of tree roots and rocks and pray that my family isn’t eaten by bears.

So how can I give my son an awesome camp experience and still have access to my blow dryer, refrigerator, and running water?

Make a folding fabric tent!

My husband Taybin and I actually made this for our son last Christmas, but he was a bit young for it then and immediately tried to repurpose it as some sort of weapon. So we put it away until spring, when he would be a teensy bit older. We took it out again, and it was like it was brand new — a few months makes a big difference at this age!

We like to make things together but (like many parents) just don’t have the time, so we make a point to collaborate on one big project a year for our son. The projects that seem to work best for us have two distinct sections so we can each be in charge of one part and reduce the chance of sleep-deprived, project-induced bickering.

You really don’t have to be extraordinarily talented or handy to make stuff for your kids. If you have a little bit of skill, a lot of patience, and the ability to follow directions, you can make your own stuff. So many people graciously post tutorials of their successful projects, so if you Google what you’re thinking of making or do a quick search on Pinterest you can probably find instructions for just about any project. Some are harder than others, but this one was super easy and great for beginners. You can even do it without a sewing machine.

I knew I wanted to make a teepee, but I wasn’t sure exactly what sort of teepee I wanted to do. These teepee style tents are really lovely, but seemed beyond our abilities this time around — I was overwhelmed by the number of tutorials and how many panels I’d have to cut. Then I was lamenting about it to a friend, and she tipped me off to a wonderful post from Noodlehead about her tent, which is just a single piece of fabric attached to a small wooden frame, and looked delightfully complete-able on parent time.

I soon discovered that — much like fruitcake — it seems there’s just one great A-frame tent tutorial out there, passed from blogger to blogger and they then make their own modifications. Because there are already so many tent tutorials out there for you to choose from, I won’t go into our step-by-step process. I’m terrible at giving instructions anyway. But I will share a few tips and lessons.

The basic idea came from the famous-in-parenting-circles Cakies Tent Tutorial. Taybin was in charge of the tent infrastructure, and he really wanted to add a bracing bar across the bottom of the tent like Anna at Noodlehead did to balance the rambunctious spirit of our son. He also really liked this tutorial from Just Another Hang Up for the annotated drawings. So he picked up three (3) 1x2x8 pieces of wood (about $12) and three (3) 3/4 inch dowels (about $10) to allow enough wood to make the bracing bars. He also notched out the bottom bracing bar so it would latch easily to the top of the tent when folded. Taybin has gotten very comfortable with wood crafting over the last few years, and he was able to put the frame together in about an hour and a half. Even with minimal experience, this is definitely a one-evening complete, done-in-a-day project if you’re comfortable with a drill.

Many lumber places will cut the wood for you if you don’t have power tools or saws at home (we did a few projects this way in Brooklyn back in the day, when we really could not set up a sawhorse in our tiny, dark, walkup apartment), so as long as you have a cordless drill, you’re probably set. If you get the wood cut at Home Depot or another lumber yard, there’s only one specialized tool you might need: a spade bit for your drill, which will run you about $10-20 (or ask a handy friend or neighbor to borrow one).

Because we mixed tutorials and Taybin kind of free-handed it, I had to measure the frame to figure out what size fabric I needed. I had thought this would be difficult, but just draping my measuring tape over the frame was all I needed to do to figure out the length. You might want to do this even if you follow a tutorial to the letter, just in case the dimensions have shifted in process.

The hardest part of the process for me was picking the right fabric. I spent several days visiting the local fabric stores to find just the right piece. I wanted to do something simple so my son’s imagination could really run wild. Finally, I settled on some cream-colored canvas I already had, and used some gears I cut out of a contrasting fabric with my Silhouette Cameo to jazz it up a bit (since I’m really bad at using stencils and stamps on fabric). That machine has seriously changed my life, but if you don’t have one you can always cut fabric designs by hand, or even make stamps from sponges or cardboard or even apples and design your own textiles with fabric paint. The great thing about this tent design is that if he does decide he wants a different looking play tent, I can just make a new cover! (I also draped the tent with handmade bunting from our wedding. Awwww.)

Once I’d made all those decisions, I cut the fabric to size, hemmed all the edges…and then, well, real life. My sewing machine needle snapped and almost took my eye out. (Thank god for glasses!) I had no idea where my spares were, since my craft room is still a work in progress and to this day still isn’t fully unpacked. Even though it was Christmas Eve and I knew my son wouldn’t miss one present, I was determined to finish the thing on principle alone. In my panicked state, I also misplaced the elastic I’d bought to fasten the fabric to the tent frame, so I made a huge mistake and decided to just go ahead and hot-glue hair elastics to the fabric. If it’s good enough for Project Runway it’s good enough for Project Fake Camping, right? WRONG. You know why? Designers don’t give the clothes to cranky toddlers who’ve been binging on chocolate from Nana all day while refusing to nap. Because, you know, Christmas is basically Finals Week for parents, and I was running on even less sleep than my boy.

This hair elastics, glue & fabric combo didn’t even make it through Christmas Day, so I had to redo the elastic before he could play with it again. The glue was very stuck on despite the fact the elastic had long since shredded, making cleanup the hardest part of the tent-making process. But after many months (this is what I mean about parent time!) it’s finally ready for a long summer of camping adventures.

So let’s recap: Camping is terrifying (because, bears), but making a DIY tent is not. Even if you love actual outdoor camping, this is a great thing to have around if you have small kids and you’re stuck in the relative comfort of home, like we were ALL WINTER LONG this year.

Now if anyone needs me I’ll be hiding in the tent watching Mad Men folding laundry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kat Rutkin isn’t a parenting expert, but she’s made a lot of mistakes so you don’t have to. She lives in Somerville, MA with her husband, son, and two cats, Ike & Tina.