How to build a stuffed animal zoo!

How many of you buy WAY too many stuffed animals for your kids?  We all are guilty of it...even Kohls makes us feel bad if we don't buy one of their "Kohls Cares for Kids" stuffed animals!  I mean it helps kids!  And who can go to the mall without hitting up Build A Bear.  My kids stuffed animal collections were out of control.  So I went looking for an easy solution.  That's when I found the Stuffed animal zoo!!  It was perfect!  It would house them all and it was great!  Problem?  It was 157.00 plus shipping.  WOWZERS!  I'd rather have mess than pay that much.  I read lots of DIY blogs about it and decided to attempt to my my own.  I used 1x2s because they are cheap.  I used 3- 1x2x8s and 4-1x2x6s.

First cut 3- 1x2x8s into 24" pieces.  (you can have home depot do this for you)  Now you have 12- 24in pieces.

I used 4 pieces to form a square and screwed them together.  I did this three times, so you have three 24x24 square boxes.  One I had this done, I used 4- 1x2x6 pieces to nail the three frames onto.  The first box I made is on the bottom...

Note: Don't do projects on a plush area rug...do it on a hard floor so your poles are even.  If you don't, it's OK...you can "fix" it when you put the last box on top!

Put your second box in the middle and screw it onto the posts.  Remember to use a level!  Then screw the top box on.  It should look like this:

The next step is to install the eye hooks to the inside of the frame.  

These things are hard to get in, so I pre-drilled the holes and then used a pencil to turn them into the wood.

I used 3 eye hooks on each of the 4 sides.  So you will need 36 of them.  Once you are finished it's time to put the bungee cord on.  I used roughly half of this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008J1HZUK/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Take the bungee cord and pull it through one set of  eye hooks going down. Knot the end at the top.  Pull it kind of tight and cut the cord.   Then knot the bottom.  Just make sure it's tight so that your animals wont fall out.  Continue to do this on all 4 sides until your zoo looks like this:

Then find a good spot for it in your playroom or kids room...

And finally...fill it full of animals!!!

OK...now here is what I'd do different:
Instead of buying 3-1x2x8s, I'd buy 1x3x8s.  The frame will be sturdier.  Then I would NOT cut them all in 24" pieces.  I would make the zoo a rectangle.  12"x24" pieces would be better.  I also would not make it 6 ft tall.  4 ft tall would be a great height for this!  I also might make 4 bungee lines instead of 3.  This would help keep in the smaller animals that fall out of mine.

All in all it's a good zoo...but for our needs, you will probably see another blog post about a NEW zoo before Christmas. :)