Playhouse Design
The date has been set to force me to finish the playhouse design. Construction of the new playhouse will begin in a couple of weeks. The ‘playhouse’ started out in the backyard of a friend’s house. He offered the old playhouse that he inherited and I took it apart with plans to put it back together at our house.
Of course, I could not put it back the same way so I spent hours pulling nails and sorting wood pieces. Once I had an inventory of parts, I began the new design. I reused a lot of old wood, added some new wood, and some new accessories. The playhouse was designed.
We constructed it a few weeks later only to run into an opportunity that we could not pass up. We put our house on the market and planned to move to Harrisonburg. The one requirement from those purchasing our old house was to remove the playhouse that I just built.
So it begins again, I have all the parts from the removed playhouse and I need to start pulling nails and determining the available parts. I also have a different slope to build on so the design has to be modified. To be honest, I would have changed the design anyway, but that is what I do. So what features should be incorporated into the design? What have you seen that would be cool? The design work is set to begin and there are no limits. Here are some ideas…
I used to love the knotted climbing rope on my playhouse and the rope ladders… the more difficult it was to get in, the better… haha. I was also always envious of my friend who had an outdoor playhouse with a fake sink and a table built-in. Knooks and crannies are also good ideas for games of hide-and-seek or flashlight tag. I also always wanted a pulley system for lowering and raising buckets of items… we always used to try to make our knotted rope into our dumbwaiter, but it was always so hard to use.
There has to be a little privacy. A place to climb in and sit with a good book and get lost in reading a story. Shelves and places to sit. Lots of climbing “things”. A fast get a way – “slide”. The first pic is my fav of the two. I liked the one you built at the lake house.
My favorite parts of a play house were the tire swing, the rope bridge, and the trapeze bar with rings. I used to flip around like a monkey on that trapeze bar… I also loved the sand box.
i’m planning to convert the ladder to a rock wall and adding a sand box for my nieces. I second the mentions of a swing and places to hide.
Some of the very best naps I’ve had have been in a hammock. It requires two hooks at diagonal posts, about (child’s) eye level & hopefully at least ten feet apart. The hammock may be kept on one hook when not in use. (That also prevents line tangling). You want the hammock to hang (when occupied) at about knee high from the floor (for safety). It’s especially nice when there’s a plexi or glass roof panel so that as your child lies there, whether reading, day dreaming or sleeping, they have the sky above them. Even at night they can see the stars when they “camp out” in their tree house.
Amy – I will never have a sand box, NEVER. It is bad enough that the pre-school has a sand box – therefore I have sand in beds, cars, shoes, floors. I honestly don’t know how they get it so many places. I suspect they hide it in bags and dump it all over my house just to keep my guessing!
Audrey, hope you are doing well. If only I had the construction skills that you do, my kids would have the best playset in the world. I love all the ideas on this list and will design them in, but once we get to construction, some lack of skill may come into play.
Noel, love the idea of a hammock!
All – thanks for reading and commenting on my blog post. Keep the ideas coming, I hope to have the design done this coming week and construction started next weekend.
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