Remember that one time when the Novogratzes put a slide in a basement? That was awesome, but it was also labor intensive and permanent. Here's a quick, cheap and temporary take on the indoor stairway slide.
Blogger J at The Contemplative Creative has fond childhood memories of her church's annual harvest festival, the high point of which was a church stairwell converted to a slide with cardboard and duct tape. J decided to recreate that magic at home. Her kids warmed up to the new slide by sending down race cars and balls before launching themselves down. Read more about their slide at The Contemplative Creative.
(Images: The Contemplative Creative)
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Love it!
Nice! I guess still best on a carpeted stairwell, hm? Or maybe you just need a pillow "inner tube" for a more comfortable ride!
This is awesome!
used to go down the stairs in a large box, guess it's the same idea, this is probably safer
This looks really dangerous... I want to do it
This is dangerous, esp. for smaller kids. There is no padding ( carpet doesn't count ) and the stairs make you go strait and fast to the ground - there is a reason why there's that curve towards the end on playground slides. It's all fun til someone shatters a tailbone or get a concussion.
When I was a kid we used 3 foam cheap matresses to go down the stairs. 2 to line the stairs, and 1 to use as a sled. Don't know how safe it was, but we survived and LOVED it.
Dear v.a.,
You don't have to do it. You can just watch or you can go tell mom. I'm FIRST!
At my friends' house we lined the stairs with super slippery mattresses. A foam mattress and pile of pillows at the bottom softened the blow. That was a level of fun strictly forbidden at my house. Hurray for classmates with hippie pot smoking parents.
When I was little we would go down the staircase in a big box. Miraculously we didn't injure ourselves.
hooray.
such a great childhood memory.
slide on.
I remember sliding down my friend's stairs using the couch cushions when her mom wasn't looking. This is probably better for the sofa!
I remember doing this at a friend's house in maybe 1975. It was a christmas party and my parents would NEVER have let me do this at MY house! I am soooooo doing this for my 6 1/2 yr. old son!!!!!! What was that about hippie parents? LOL!!!
my kids slide down our carpeted staircase all the time. it used to scare me and I used to try and stop them but I just let them do it now. they somehow know to keep their legs out in front of them so they don't trip over them or anything. they just slide down on their bums going bump bump bump down each stair!
My cousins and I used the pillows off of our beds as sleds down the stairs. Headfirst, naturally. My friends and I also totally used to slide our sleeping bags down the stairs at slumber parties. Of course there was the risk of getting hurt--that's why it was fun!
Either way, looks like a total blast and bravo!
I used to do this on our wooden stairs with a super slippery sleeping bag. I never injured myself but the wall did get a hole in it once, I think from a friend. So much fun, wish I had stairs for my boys to do this
When I was a kid we slid down my friend's carpeted staircase on flatten cardboard boxes. Of course, it was fun but I remember also hitting the wall and a potted plant from the momentum..just as her mom walked in.
Like quite a few others, my sister and I also did this as kids. We used all sorts of things from sleeping bags, to couch cushions, to card board boxes. On more than one occasion, someone was injured and/or broke something...luckily never seriously, and certainly never enough to stop us from doing it again!
Looks fun! But how do they get back up the stairs?
lol how funny! I had this idea the other day while having cocktails with friends... the slide would be for us of course since none of us have kids.
I loved footie pjs because they allowed me to slide down the stairs feet-first without getting a rug burn on my stomach - this looks like so much fun!
When I was a kid and moved, the movers set up something like this to slide boxes and mattresses down the stairs. I got home from school and the stairs were a slide. The movers let us ride the mattresses down. Great fun!
At a neighbor's house, we would stuff a foam pad inside of a sleeping bag, sit inside, and slide down the stairs. The foam pad was a little wider than the sleeping bag so the bottom stayed curved and made it slide better.
Where I grew up in Southern California, everyone I knew had ranch houses. Until a girl invited me over for a slumber party and she had stairs! We slid down the stairs in sleeping bags, and I remember it so well 25 years later.
We did this at my grandparents house without pillows/mattresses/cardboard! Just like @1001petals describes. It was so fun as a kid, but I remember trying it again as a 11 or 12 year old and my older body was NOT happy with me. Plus my grandpa just looked on in disapproval. Ha!
Like the others my sisters and I were all about sliding down the stairs. When we were little footie pajamas on the carpet were good enough. When we got bigger we used nylon sleeping bags...until my sister's foot went through the wall. She was fine, but we weren't allowed to play on the stairs anymore.
On another note the idea of sliding on cardboard gives me chills!
I never thought to do this as a child, nor did any of my friends or cousins. What a deprived childhood I had!
One of my favourite things to do as a kid too, we used to grab the large seat cushions from the sofa and 'sled' down the staircase! It only works until you reach a certain age/weight I suppose... coz at some point your body gets too heavy and it's no longer a smooth ride down... just an uncomfortable bumpy experience :(
We used sleeping bags, too. My non-hippy, non-pot-smoking mother let us get away with it as long as Dad wasn't home. I think she wanted us to wear out the avocado shag carpet the previous homeowners installed so she would have a reason to replace it. (She couldn't bring herself to replace anything unless is was worn. Carpet was still in the house when my dad finally moved last summer. He swore it was still perfectly fine, even though it was covering gorgeous pine floors. He almost had a stroke when the real estate agent pulled up a corner.)
we used to use this single sixe foam mattress that had been covered in fabric.
fold it in half, and climb in so that your butt is inside the open edge, the folded edge is at your toes. you are sitting on one of the short ends, and the other half that extends away from you is fold back and over your legs. you hold onto that top edge and go "wheeeeee" down the stairs.
so much fun!
Oh thank goodness no "Pebbles as Tripping Hazards" people showed up to throw a wet blanket over this & complain about AT encouraging kids to slid down stairs & break their necks! YES!!!! Kids having fun!!! Wheeeeee!!!!! I wish MY house had a staircase because I would slide down it right now!!!
Sleeping bags (especially slick nylon) and plastic laundry baskets work great too!
We slid down the stairs too but without cardboard or mattresses. On our butts, so much fun.
Growing up me and my sister used sleeping bags as well, along with hampers and cardboard boxes. And when we felt like going all out we would line the stairs with cardboard, just like in the photos, and sled down in the hampers. Very fond memories :)
We tried this out today but found the cardboard would just bend under my 6-year-olds body and mimic the step. We then got out his two z-chairs and put them on the steps (they fitted perfectly, covering the whole lenght) and all of a sudden sliding down became a lot more fun! We also put a lot of cushions at the bottom to keep the pain from bumping down minimal. As the z-beds were slightly bendy they would also allow my son getting upstairs again without pulling everything up. Success!
ernern, laundry baskets were our vehicle of choice too! oh, such fun times!
I would totally strap a helmet on the little man and let him go down one of these except our stairs end abruptly at a metal door. I'm pretty sure this would be two broken feet at our house.
Hee hee. But Apartment Therapy has once again been tempted to be Chateau Therapy. Most houses (let alone apartments) don't have a second staircase for getting back up that slide again.
I have vivid memories of my brother and sisters and I falling, riding, flailing, diving, somersaulting and doing pretty much anything else to get from the top of the stairs to the bottom and we somehow did it without injury (to ourselves or to the credenza that sat at the bottom of the stairs). Some of my best memories :)
everyone knows the best way to get up some speed while sliding down the stairs is in a slick sleeping bag! aaaaand maybe with your little sister acting as the "weight" at the bottom of the sleeping bag to make it go faster.
I was Little Sister in this scenario. We all survived.