DIY House that Jack built!

We used this idea (with 3-5 yr olds) during our week about 'homes', and only because one of us had just obtained a massive cardboard box and we wanted to do something with it. We came up with an activity that lasted a whole week!
I cut the 2 flaps of the box lid off and constructed a simple partition for the house - just made a slit halfway along the two rectangle pieces of card, and slot them together to form a cross shape. Then placed them in the box creating four spaces (rooms), securing them quite well in the box with strong parcel tape.
On the Monday, children got to it with paint, decorating interior and exterior walls, and made a roof with card folded in half and selotaped on top. On Tuesday, we gave them pieces of carpet to glue to the floor and samples of wallpaper (easy to obtain from DIY store) to stick to the interior walls. On Wednesday they stuck mini acrylic tiles on the "kitchen" floor, kindly provided by a parent who is a builder! On Thursday and Friday, they experimented with different dolls house furniture, and added extra pictures on the walls etc, and by the end of the week, they had their own home-made house, that looked like the house that Jack built, but they loved it. And they were playing with it for weeks after!!