Garden Structures – Wendy House

A Wendy house is a small toy house, often made of strong fabric but also sometimes of wood or even stone or brick, specially designed for children to play in. The name originates from J M Barrie’s novel, Peter Pan, in which Wendy leaves her home to travel to Neverland with Peter and becomes the housekeeper for Peter, her brothers, and the rest of the Lost Boys in the ‘Wendy’ house.

The easiest way to build a permanent Wendy House is to find a cheap (and small) shed and add a few feminine touches, such as gingham curtains, maybe some heart shaped stencils, gingerbread detailing on the eaves (easily done with a stencil, a jigsaw and some marine plywood) and pretty plants in pots outside. Don’t forget a birdcage with a little armchair and a mirror for Tinkerbell, the naughty fairy! With a few such details, you can create a unique environment that will give children a magical and safe place to spend time.

Be sure before you start to build though, as to whether you need planning permission in your area, some local authorities insist that a Wendy house is a permanent structure while others class it as a shed ... don’t make the mistake of assuming one thing and finding out, when you’ve got a fine and a compulsory removal order, that it’s the other!

Paint Wendy houses a deep green or some other rich but unobtrusive colour. Brown looks too much like a shed or a Swiss chalet, but bright colours fade unevenly and can look very garish in winter as shown here!

Alternatively, metal framed Wendy houses with a fabric overlay like a tent that can be folded down, are very cheap and can be set up outdoors in good weather and indoors in bad.

Garden Wendy house photograph by Elin B, used under a creative commons attribution licence.

 

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