Castle Project Chapter 1 or In the beginning, there were these build-a-bear boxes

So I had these cottage shaped Build-a-Bear boxes that were just aching to made into something cool, and a dozen or more Girl Scout Cookie case boxes and a hoard of empty shoe boxes to add to effort.  In my head, a castle was forming.  It was not a traditional, boxy, symmetrical type castle, but rather more a rambling, Hogswarts style castle that I had in mind.

 I didn't manage to take a shot of the "inspiration" box before I started painting it, but it looked like the one here.  The sides had icing/chalk drawings of doors, but they weren't functioning.  That is until I got out my box cutter.  I decided I would use on of the door styles as a base shape for a castle essential--the drawbridge and on the other box I would use the other style door as an actual door use the windows as is.  I, also, cut out the circle logos at the top of the box for sky lights.  With lots of masking tape, I smoothed out the parts that stuck out and covered the handle hole, to make a solid looking roof.  Then I cut out one side of one box opposite what would become the drawbridge.  and I cut two panels out of the other box to provide more access for play.  Then the interior wall decor began.

For the gatehouse (the box with the drawbridge), I cut 1/2" strips of a variety of wood colored paper I had in my ridiculous stash of scrapbook paper (I used to be a Creative Memories consultant) and with a watered down white glue, I began to paper the drawbridge and the interior of the gatehouse.  After "papering" the interior, I painted the boxes with some acrylic paint I had left over from a mural I did for our nursery before my first daughter was born.  

The keeping room or tack room (I still can't decide what to call it) also got it's interior set and exterior painted.  

While cutting up and taping the Build-a-Bear boxes, I also started cutting up and taping together some of the Girls Scout Cookie case boxes.  One was planned as the stable to go in between the two Build-a-Bear boxes and another case was going to go on top of the stable and become a ballroom.  On top of all of these, two cases were masking taped together to form the dining room and sitting room.  Then on top of that I was going to put the kitchen, a library and a room from the chief of security, Shrek.  

It was originally, once all put together, it was planned to look like this:

Things changed a little bit and the dining room and sitting room, as well as the kitchen, library and Shrek's room, were moved to another wing.  But this is how it started.  I had this primary building and some shoe boxes fashioned together with masking tape to form an additional wing, planned primarily for bedrooms.  

Boxes, masking tape, hot glue, scrapbook paper, acrylic paint and modge podge, all of which I already had on hand were the primary resources I used when the project started.

The Gatehouse, stable, and tack room were the first things I finished.  

For the stable, because I knew the box was going to support other boxes, I made a support column to ensure stability.  I, also had to build up the top of the ballroom box so that the dining room and sitting room boxes would sit across it and the rooftops of the gatehouse and tack room.  

The stable got a paint job before putting on the pretty paper and then go several coats of modge podge.  The stable was hot glued between the gatehouse and tack room.  The places where the walls joined up were taped for reinforcement and repainted.  

Eventually, I decided to line the opening between the gatehouse and stable with wooden craft sticks.  I, also, covered the glue joins on the outside of the castle with wooden craft sticks and painted them for nicer, less gluey look.  The opening between the stable and the tack room is still a little rough looking but I'm not trying to make it perfect--it's a stable in an "old" castle, it doesn't need to be flawless--or at least that's what I'm telling myself.  The girls haven't complained.

The finished stable and tack room look like this.

The drawbridge to the gatehouse had to be a working drawbridge, obviously.  How would I make that happen?  

I went out to the craft stores and searched in the jewelry making sections.  I found a necklace chain of heavy-ish weight and reasonably smooth links.  Since I cut the drawbridge right out of the side of box, instead of attaching something, the drawbridge was exactly the same size as the opening, so I couldn't simply pull the chains through the sides of the castle wall, the drawbridge wouldn't close proper, plus it would look odd.  So I made a header, to go across the arch of the opening, using popsicle sticks.  This did two useful things--provided a place through which to pull the drawbridge chains and provided a stronger structure that would handle more wear and tear.  

I carefully punched holes in the wooden pieces and placed tiny rivets, also from the craft store, in the holes to ensure the chains would glide smoothly through the holes.  To ensure strength, I actually used two sticks and glued them together.  I also punched holes, using a compass point, in the drawbridge, at the same spots, and put rivets in the holes as well.  Once the chain was in the drawbridge, I hammered the rivets to affix the chain to the bridge and then sealed it with hot glue.  

I left a fair amount of slack in the chains, since little children would be playing with it.  The ends of the chain were affixed to small nobs which were glued to the interior walls of the gatehouse.  You wrap the chains around the nobs to keep the drawbridge up and unwind to let the drawbridge down--not very sophisticated but it works and is easy for the kiddos to use.

Decorative buttons were used to cover the holes and glue on the exterior of the drawbridge and were added to the header beam and eventually to several of the windows that I trimmed out with wood pieces, for both aesthetics and durability.  The interior of the gatehouse looked like this, at this point in the project.  

After I began work on the project, it started to grow in scope, insanely really.  And there were some changes made to the plans.  As I mentioned the dining room, sitting room and the rooms above those, were moved to another wing.  An atrium/greenhouse, requested by my daughters who were inspired by an episode of "Sofia the first," was added.  The how's on that are for another post, but this is how the "mostly" finished wing ended up looking.

The girls play with the rooms as soon as they are even a little finished.  It became apparent that having to reach through the stable to get to the drawbridge controls was a serious hassle.  So, even though I had trimmed out the windows and thought I was mostly finished, I decided to cut out the exterior wall.  So it the gatehouse looks like this.  Easier to play.  

There are five more wings to the the castle and dozens of rooms.  It now takes up the entire dining room table.  I'll create posts for the rooms, in varying detail.  This is a long story, and the project is still in progress.  Stay tuned.