DIY: How to build an indoor teepee your kids will love

A few months ago I decided to make a teepee for my daughter Maya. They are all so popular and seem like a necessary decor in any nursery so I thought I’d give it a try. I got all I needed to build the teepee tent but it took me several months to actually do it and complete this DIY project. I tried to find good tutorials online and while they all gave me inspirations none of the ones I found gave me clear instructions on how to build a teepee.

So, it all was trial and error and now I am really pleased with the result. I wish I took pictures of all the steps I went through to complete the teepee but my steps were actually so chaotic that I never even thought of using my camera during the building process. Regardless, I want to share my thoughts and experience in case someone out there is also trying to build a teepee for their kids. I hope to be able to recreate what I did and hopefully be of good help.

I have to say it is a great play area for kids. The height of the finished teepee is about 1.2 metres (4′) so it could be used for quite some time. It cost me no more than $15 to make so I’d say is totally worth it.

Materials Needed:

Five 4′ long wooden dowels for the teepee poles, I used the 1.2” thick ones

Steel wire, 0.33mm thick

A spare white sheet or any sort of fabric you wish to use for the tent cover

thread and needle

A pair of Fiskars scissors

Directions

I asked the hardware store to drill small holes at one end of each dowel. Then I gathered them all at this end and thread the wire through the holes to secure them together.

This is pretty much self-explanatory but you need the teepee poles gathered at one point to form the tent roof while at the other end you have to part them as wide as possible. In this way you form the skeleton of the teepee.

Once you thread all the holes with wire, tighten the wire around at least 5 more times to secure it even more. I used another piece of wire for a tighter fit.

Then the fun part begins. It was hard for me to figure out how to cover the teepee. I started by cutting triangle shapes to fit into each space between the teepee poles. It didn’t work and was too much of an effort. I pondered for some time until I decided to just wrap the sheet around the poles. No cuts, no fitting and it  worked–the teepee started to look like an actual teepee! I made a few stitches at the bottom around each pole to secure the sheet in place. Then I wrapped a tassel garland at the top of the teepee and it suddenly looked great.

(See my post on how to make yarn tassels). I placed a cotton blanket underneath and furnished the teepee with the hand knit pillows I wrote about a while ago.

And here it is a very pretty and cosy teepee indeed, one of the most popular play areas in our tiny flat.

Quick tip: this teepee is not very easy to move around, so build it where you plan it to stay and put a blanket underneath it, (if you want of course) before you build it so it is there when the teepee is ready.

I hope you’ll enjoy making this project and your thoughts are greatly welcome!

Guest blogger Stela currently lives in Denver with her husband and their daughter Maya. She works in digital marketing and SEO and writes her blog Prettily, where she talks about all sorts of ladies’ stuff like crafts, fashion, beauty, cooking to name a few, as well as her life as a mum.