Fairy House Made From Scrap PVC

Why spend $10 on a 2-foot piece of 2-inch PVC pipe when I can buy a 10-foot piece for $20?

Last year I had to renovate my mother's kitchen due to a pipe that burst in her ceiling. As a part of that renovation, I had to relocate some of the plumbing for the kitchen sink specifically some 2-inch PVC. I didn't have any laying around my garage, so I went to the store to buy some and unsuspectingly arrived at a decision crossroad. As I stared at the racks of PVC, studying the prices, I began to ponder which length I should buy. The 2-foot piece is probably enough but its half the price of a 10-foot piece, which is more than enough material. I thought to myself, well I don't really need more than about 2 feet but if I screw up a cut I will have to come back to the store and buy another piece and waste even more time. I went back and forth thinking about this for far longer than I care to admit. Ultimately, I chose to buy the 10-foot length because I just couldn't bring myself to pay $10 for 1/5 the length of pipe. And that is how I ended up with 8 feet of 2-inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe.

Alright enough with the prologue, I have been watching a lot of folks build dioramas and have been wanting to try my hand at it. I figured a good way to dip my toe in to the community would be by making a fairy house. This way I could explore the process without having to commit to a full building or a full scene. And since this would live outside, I wanted it to be sturdy and last a long time, so I decided to try and make it out of plastic. Originally, I was going to buy some styrene sheets and use those as my base material but then I remembered the scrap PVC I had and decided to use that instead. I discovered a few things along the way and if you would like to know more about my process, please keep reading.

2-inch PVC

Hacksaw

Marker

Sandpaper - various grits 120-220

Ruler

Portable Bandsaw

Acetone

Heat Gun

Scrap 3/4 inch plywood

Bench Vise

Files

Drill Press

1-inch Forstner Bit

Super Glue

Dremel with Accessories

Blue Tape

Epoxy/Resin

Resin Pigments

Mold Release

Small Nails

Wire Cutters

1/8 inch Brass Rod

Small Torch

Acrylic Paints

Spray Primer

Spray Paint

Clear Satin Spray Paint

Paint Brushes - various sizes

Paper Plates

Paper Towels

PPE

I didn't know how much material I would need so I just cut about a 2-foot length of pipe using my hack saw.

I arbitrarily chose 5 inches as the height of the main body of the fairy house and cut several pieces to 5 inches using my Portable Band Saw Table, How to Make a Portable Bandsaw Table : 14 Steps (with Pictures) - Instructables and used some 150 grit sand paper to clean up the cut ends. I tried to get the cuts as square as possible but its not super critical to the build to get them perfect. In this case close enough is good enough.

*You can also make these cuts with a hacksaw, the portable band saw is just faster.

I needed to cut each 5-inch section in half, so I stacked up a scrap piece of wood and steel to get me approximately to the halfway point and marked a line with my marker. Then I took the piece back to my portable band saw table and cut them in half. Here again I cleaned up the cut edges with sandpaper.

This step isn't necessary since everything will be painted but it makes it easier to work with, in my opinion. I used some Acetone to wipe off the factory markings. Acetone evaporates fairly quickly so I just set those pieces aside to dry.

Time to make some PVC slabs. While I did need some pieces to remain in the half circle shape, I needed to flatten some of the other pieces of PVC, which I would use to make the other parts of the fairy house structure. I used two pieces of 3/4 inch scrap plywood which would be my press and a heat gun to soften the PVC so it could be flattened. Do this in well-ventilated area PVC fumes are dangerous. You don't want to scorch or burn the PVC; you just want to warm it up until it is pliable. You should not see any smoke coming from the PVC. I found the best way to do this is to keep the heat gun moving, do not let it set in one area. Eventually the PVC will start to relax and deform on its own, once it is at this stage you can spread it apart very easily and place it in between the two pieces of plywood. To make sure that the PVC was as flat as possible I placed the plywood/PVC sandwich in my bench vise. It cools in a matter of minutes and can be removed from the plywood blocks. I repeated this process several times to make several pieces of flat stock. I don't have an exact number of pieces in mind I just made what I thought would be enough. If I needed more, I made more.

After deciding on what I wanted the roof of the fairy house to look like I realized I needed a large piece to make the roof. So, I took a longer piece of PVC pipe and marked the halfway point on the side and clamped it in my bench vise. Another way to cut the PVC in half is using a hacksaw and a bench vice. This is a little tricky because as you cut the PVC will want to pinch the blade. To mitigate the pinching of the blade, I start the cut one half of the PVC cutting about 50% of the way, lengthwise. Then I switch to the opposite side and start cutting from there until both my cut lines meet in the middle.

With my longer piece slit down the middle I again used my heat gun to warm up the PVC and flattened it. Since this piece was larger, I used a broken slab of granite and MDF to press it flat. I made this large piece because I was originally thinking about making 3 fairy houses and this would have been enough material to make all three roofs. But in theory a 5-inch-long piece would have been larger enough to make one roof.

You can see the larger PVC slab did not come out perfectly flat. But that's not really important because it will have to be heated again and reformed into a conical shape. I used a piece of cardboard to mockup the roof shape then traced that on to my PVC slab and used my portable band saw to cut out the shape.

Time for more heat gun action. I did the same as before but this time I made sure to wear some gloves since I was going to have to shape the roof on to the main structure of the house and hold it in place until it retained its shape. The PVC gets hot but not so hot that you can't manipulate it while wearing gloves. The thicker the gloves the better!

You can see in the last picture the three houses I had planned to make. In the end I decided to make just one because in reality my tree isn't very large, and it would look sort of crowded. This is one of those moments where the tree in my mind's eye was larger than the tree in my reality. But it was still good to have some back up pieces and I can always use these in the future if I want to make anymore. That's one of the great things about PVC being relatively inexpensive, mistakes don't hurt as much as with some other raw materials.

I eyeballed the center of the half pipe and scribed a line then I drew in what I thought the door should look like in pencil. I wanted to add a window, so I used a 1-inch Forstner bit and drilled a hole above the door. I used a file to clean up the hole.

Time to add some detail. I attached a cut off wheel to my Dremel and carved in the shape of the door. Then with the same attachment I carved in some lines to give the appearance of wooden planks. I made 4 deep grooves to signify the separate boards that make up the door then I randomly carved shallower lines on to the planks. These lines do not have to be straight or consistent just make sure they are vertical, basically you want to try and mimic wood grain.

I used this same technique to make wooden planks out of the smaller PVC slabs. First, I make deep grooves about 1/4 inch apart with the cutoff wheel then I just start to carve and score the surface randomly in a vertical direction. I also used a steel brush to add more texture to the PVC slabs. Then I used some 80-grit sandpaper to add even more texture; with the sandpaper make sure to sand in one direction. Start at the top and drag the sandpaper across the surface in one stroke to the bottom. You want to create grooves and not smooth out the plastic. All of these different lines create different layers which adds to the wood effect.

Once I was happy with the look of the PVC slabs, I used my portable band saw to slice off individual planks of wood. I cut some thinner strips and a few thicker strips. I used the deeper grooves as a guide to make my cuts.

Now came the fun part. I didn't have a set plan for the look I just had a rough idea so I just kind of played with the different shapes of the planks and if I liked the way it looked, I glued it down. I used super glue or Cyanoacrylate to attach the faux wood pieces the structure. Super glue does not like super smooth surfaces it prefers surfaces that have some texture, so I recommend sanding all pieces with some 150-grit sandpaper to get good adhesion. I started by using the medium thick glue but I ran out and ended up using regular thin glue for the rest of the project.

One thing that I realized about dioramas and art in general is that layers make for better art, most of the time. I know this is a very basic concept, but I sometimes forget how important it is to think in layers. So, while I was mocking this up, I was trying to keep in mind my background, (the tree), my midground, (the house), and my foreground, (what protrudes from the house) and finally the details. In an effort to add some depth and character to the structure I cut a piece of 1-inch PVC pipe to create a window frame that stuck off the front of the house. I used a pair of PVC cutters to cut the pipe and it fortuitously made a wonky cut which matched the radius of the PVC house. Had it not matched the radius I would have just sanded it to match.

For the roof I wanted to create a sort of slate tile look. I used my pencil to draw some tile shapes on the PVC in a brick pattern. Then I used my Dremel with the cutoff attachment and carved all the vertical lines. Next, I used a small burr type attachment to carve out all the curved areas of the roof. They sort of look like teeth at this point. I also used the same small burr to randomly nick different parts of the roof. I was trying to create an irregular/weathered look on the roof. I didn't want it to be perfectly smooth. Texture is your friend.

I liked the round window on the house so much that I decided to make two more standalone windows. Here I show how I made the grills for the circular windows. I marked the center of the frame and used my band saw to nibble away a recess for the grill pieces to sit in. I also used some small hand files to make any minor adjustments to fit the grills. This way they could sit flush against the tree. For the grills I used the portable bandsaw and nibbled away at the material to make some half lap joints. Once I was happy with the fit of everything, I glued them all together.

While I liked the look of the windows, I thought they needed a little something else so I decided to make little roofs that would match the main house roof. I used the same method as the roof for the house to make these smaller ones. I also show how I plan to attach these to the tree. I cut the head off a small nail and then heated up the body with a mini torch and pushed it in to the back of the window. Once its cooled and painted I will super glue the nail in place. Its basically a large thumbtack.

As you can see, I added bits and pieces to the structure to look like beams. I've said this like 4 times already, but I didn't have a plan I just would place pieces in different spots and if I liked the way it looked, I would glue it in place.

In an effort to add some more depth and another layer I made a small porch that I could glue the house too. I made sure to round off the back of the porch to compensate for the radius of the tree trunk. When I was happy with the porch, I glued it to the house. The last pic shows a mockup of what the house will look like.

I will use a piece of wire and screw to hang the house on the tree. I drilled two 1/8-inch holes on the back sides of the house and ran a piece of bailing wire through each hole. The house is not very heavy, so the wire is plenty strong enough to hold the house.

I still felt like the windows needed a little something else, so I decided to make some windowpanes. I used some epoxy and a pigment to make some yellow windowpanes. I used pieces of 1-inch PVC as molds. I taped the bottom of the mold and made sure to spray them with mold release. I mixed up my epoxy and a drop or two of yellow pigment and poured that in to my molds. I let those cure overnight.

Once the epoxy cured the windowpanes popped right out. I did not glue the windowpanes in place until after I had painted everything. But before gluing the windowpanes, scrape away any paint that will interfere with the glue. The last pic is what they look like after the windows have been painted.

When it came time to paint, I made sure to wipe all the pieces down with alcohol. Once the alcohol dried, I gave everything a coat of primer. Then I sprayed everything with a satin almond spray paint. This is sort of the base color of the house, I say sort of because the final color will be an acrylic paint applied with a brush.

Now we have come to trying to get the plastic to look like wood. These are the colors I used to paint the wood sections. You don't have to get the exact same colors, when it comes to wood you want to get a variety of browns and red-ish browns as well as some yellow. The last picture shows what my paper plate pallet looks like for the wood.

I wanted to try and breakdown the process I used for painting the wood, so I used this small plank as an example piece. First, I loosely brush on some yellow paint, you don't want full coverage you just want to make random streaks. You can set this aside to dry or use a heat gun on low sitting to speed up the drying process. Before you move on to the next color make sure the previous layer is dry or they will just end up blending together. Next, I used a lighter shade of brown again applying it in streaks randomly. Once that dried, I applied some barn red streaks and let that dry. Then I covered the entire piece with a dark brown, specifically burnt umber, and let that dry. Next, I used a black wash to fill in all the nooks and crannies. This stuff is for metal, but it worked just as well on plastic. You can make your own black wash by watering down some black acrylic paint. You want it to be very thin so it can flow in to all the tiny spaces. I wiped off any excess black wash and let the piece dry. The last step is to dry brush the plank. I used a beige color but white will work as well. Dry brushing is when you take a dry brush and gently dip the bristles in the paint, then you blot the brush on to a paper towel to remove most of the paint. You want a very small amount of paint on the brush. Then you take the brush and gently stroke it on to the piece. The small paint catches on the high spots adding a weathered look. And that's it just set it aside to dry.

Here again it is all about layers and creating depth. This was my first time trying this and I was really please with the results.

This is just a group of progress shots of as I paint the wood. You will notice in the first step I didn't take my own advice and laid a rather heavy coat of yellow on all the wood pieces. But in the end the final result was pretty good. I also did some extra dry brushing in front of the door to create a wear pattern. In my mind this is where the fairy walks most of the time.

For the beige section of the house, I first re-painted everything a solid beige with a brush. When that dried, I went back and did some dry brushing with a light brown color.

I used the same coloring concept for the roof. I used a light blue then a medium blue then a dark blue. I did a light black washing and lastly, the dry brushing technique. This time I used white for the dry brushing. I really like the way the roof turned out it exceeded my expectations. I also used these colors for the front door.

Once all the pieces were painted, I added the windowpane to the house. Because of the way I constructed the window I had to cut the epoxy into 4 windowpane pieces and glue them in place. The back side of the house shows how they are just glued on top of the back of the grill pieces. Also, the roof of the house was not very secure, so I added some construction adhesive to that section where the roof meets the top of the house. I don't have pictures of that because I was using an old tube of construction adhesive and got it all over my hands. It was quite messy but well worth it in the end the roof feels way more secure now.

For the doorknob I drilled a 1/8-inch hole in the door. Then I cut a small piece of the brass rod and glued it in place.

I felt like the porch needed something else it felt too bare, so I made a small bench that I colored and then glued to the floor. You can also see in this picture that I added some green dry brushing along the back of the porch. I was trying to mimic moss growing in areas that did not see any foot traffic. I did the same for the steps, here again trying to add another layer.

I forgot to mention that since this is going outside, I sprayed the entire thing with 4 coats of satin clear spray paint.

Final thoughts, I'm really glad that I tried my hand at making a fairy house. I was intimated by the painting process and didn't think it would turn out very good at all, but I was pleasantly surprised with the final product. I have a ton to learn and even more stuff I want to try but I think I have a good jumping off point to pursue this latest infatuation. I also love that I didn't have to buy anything to make this I was able to put this all together from stuff I had at home. I hope whoever reads this finds it help or at least is able to glean a little knowledge they previously didn't have. Thank you for taking the time to look at my Instructable.