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Thread: Cubby House advice
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20th November 2013, 12:27 PM #1
Cubby House advice
Hi All,
I am planning on building a cubby house for my young son. While i have pretty good experience making indoor furniture, I am not familiar with this kind of outdoor structure.
I was hoping to build a cubby/fort combo. That is, the bottom level would be a fully enclosed cubby with shutter windows and doors that is essentially weatherproof, so he can store toys and other items without getting wet.
The roof would form the floor to the fort, so a ladder on the outside to climb onto the roof, then a slide off the side.
I was planning on having 4 posts, approx 90*90*3000 treated pine. I would then use 120* 35 treated pine battens and joists attached to the posts for both the floor and the roof.
For the cubby floor, I was going to use treated pine decking and leave a 1 or 2 mm gap between each.
My main problem was what to use for the roof/fort floor. If I use the decking, I need to butt them together to make a leak proof roof, but that will mean there will be ridges between each piece (unless i run them over the jointer to take the curve off). However, I assume these will need expansion allowance?
If I use say 120*19mm pine and nail them butted together, I am assuming over time they will expand, contract, bow and warp as well.
Secondly, what is a good wall material. I see you can buy pine lining, but it usually says indoor only. i want to avoid the same issue of the timber warping, bowing etc.
Any advice appreciated.
thanks
RB
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20th November 2013 12:27 PM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
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20th November 2013, 03:00 PM #2Awaiting Email Confirmation
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RB,
Yes cubbyhouses are lovely for kids. Build the cubby house a per a normal structure i.e. It has a roof (colour bond).
Then build the fort structure over it. You will never get the fort floor to seal and provide a roof for the cubby house.
One friend of mine used a garden shed for the cubby house and I built the fort and other structures over it.
We cut through the walls of the shed to put windows in and made a proper door.
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22nd November 2013, 03:42 PM #3... and this too shall pass away ...
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RB,
Built something similar for my kids many years ago. They and their mates slept in it when it was raining, so we know it did not leak. Did not have many tools, and everything needed to be made from timber. I know it's not what you want to build, but you might get a few ideas.
It was elevated so the floor was about 6.5 -7 ft off the ground (so I could walk under it without scalping myself), with a rope ladder for access. 100X100 treated pine posts were used for uprights. Floor was treated pine. Walls were made of treated pine "winged splits" (these are great for that "fort" look). Main cubby was 6 feet square, with a cantilevered 6 ft X 3 ft verandah at the front, through which the rope ladder dropped (hinged trapdoor). The roof was high enough such that I could stand erect in the middle of the cubby.
Roof was "A" shaped with a 45 degree pitch and used 100 wide treated pine fence palings. Made up a roof frame and put on one layer of palings with about a 40-50 mm gap between palings. Then another layer of palings was added to cover these gaps. Finally, a ridge was added by running more palings along the ridge and overlapping them. I was concerned about leaks only on the ridge, so those joints were sealed with silicone. Floor and roof were screwed in place with screws made for use in treated pine.
Knee bracing, joists, roof frame etc were all bolted in place with (I think) 10 and 12 mm hot dipped galv bolts. Door and window from exterior grade ply.
I should have made it a couple of inches bigger, so it would hold standard bed mattresses (needed to squeeze in foam mattresses). The boys regularly held sleepovers in that cubby. Their favourite feature was the rope ladder, because they reckoned that once it was pulled up their father could not get up there and catch them up to no good.
If you need a watertight roof(for the cubby) and floor (for the fort) you have several options. One is to make it with external ply. Any joints can be shiplap joints sealed with silicone. Another is to cover a pine roof/floor with about 4-6 mm fibre cement sheet, which can be painted. Another is to make the roof/floor from a piece of 19 mm compressed fibre cement (such as is often used on verandahs, but it is as dear as poison). There will be other options. I would likely use treated pine boards, make simple shiplap joints for these boards, screw them to the joists and seal the shiplap joints with silicone. That way you can easily allow for movement as well as build the entire structure with treated pine to help make it look the part.
Couple of shots below. Both taken at night and one shows the cubby being "stress tested" by a gang of small boys (now all about 30).
I know it lasted about 20 years without incident, after which time my ex sold the house ... and the cubby.
Cheerio!
John
Cubby at Night.jpgBoys on Cubby1.jpg
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22nd November 2013, 06:53 PM #4GOLD MEMBER
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Just a thought.
My wife cannot be near treated pine because of the toxicity, and gets sick - can you imagine what that would do to a developing child? Just my 2 cents worth.
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25th November 2013, 01:54 PM #5New Member
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Cubby house
i would suggest 90 x 35 in adequate for joists both floor and roof set at 400mm centres. I'm assuming pine lining is plywood? If it is plywood you need to buy WBP (weather & boil proof) plywood as the WBP depicts it protected from both water and heat, whilst not being totally resistant to breakdown through moisture the roof I'm assuming will be covered with additional protection, roofing felt perhaps
Trevor
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