Our tent was a “God thing" … we had no idea how to make it, just a vague idea ... and it turned out pretty good! (See photo above)

The details, to the best of my explaining ability, are:

It is 8 ft. wide, 12 ft. deep and 7 ft. high. What we did is buy a "lot" of fabric for the sides. (I honestly don't remember how much.) The width of the fabric was 54" and we cut them into 7-foot lengths. Each 7 foot length panel we hemmed the bottom about an inch and the top 2 inches. We put grommets across the top (about 7 or 8 to a piece of fabric). Originally we were going to attach the panels together (side to side) as one solid piece but decided to leave them apart for a more “open” feel … and also realized by not attaching them there would be some ventilation. And the kids like to peek out between the panels!

As we were making the panels, we suddenly realized that there would not be enough to make the tent as big as we wanted it to be! We actually had enough for the sides but not the back wall! Another “God moment” occurred when a woman asked me if I could use a huge set of draperies from her daughter’s office. I said sure and it turned out that we ripped the liner out and used that for the back wall of our tent! So that’s a solid piece. (We also used the loose weaved front part of the drapes for our window coverings – you can see them in the photo!) So now we had side walls, a back wall and almost enough for the front. We decided to put a different color on the entrance (to show it was the entrance!) and not have a “door” but an opening.

We wanted it to have a 3D effect as you walk in the room, and hide a strange shaped wall and corner with a closet, so we put it in the corner on an angle. You can see the left side and the front when you come in. The back wall and right side are almost up against the 2 walls.

The roof is a large piece of painters’ canvas we got at Home Depot. I’m not sure of the size, but it’s larger than our tent so it could “billow” in the middle. We grommeted the edges of this piece. We also grommeted a 3 foot wide circle in the center and fed a rope through it.

We put heavy-duty eyehooks into the ceiling, the kind that have the pop up anchor thingy. (Can you tell I’m not mechanical?!) We strung rope through the grommets on the panels, overlapping each piece, including the roof piece, then hung the rope on the hooks, including the center rope.

The tent hangs down on the ropes about a foot from the ceiling. There was a light fixture above the tent that we capped off so it doesn’t go on when we turn the lights on.

Jan (formerly at First Pres. Napa CA)

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