Indoor playhouse

[Bombarde16]

A two-story indoor playhouse made as a Christmas gift for our three year old daughter, who has already begun to populate it with stuffed animals and a balance bike.

Salvaged, construction-grade whitewood with what passes for furniture grade plywood from the home center. (More on that later) Here it is after a bout with the thicknesser.

Finished with a typical oil-varnish blend (1:1:1 Solvent, Linseed oil, Polyurethane) wiped on and wiped off. Strong enough to hold my eight stone, so a crowd of kids jumping on it won't be trouble.

For me, the defining feature is that the whole thing breaks down into simple, modular components: Twelve posts (of which I'm only using ten in the current configuration), Ten each lower and upper wall panels (of which I'm currently using eight and nine, respectively), and four floor sections. Everything is bolted together with easy-to-replace 1/4-20 carriage bolts or screwed together with coarse drywall screws. So, when she outgrows it or gets bored with it, it can be dismantled, moved, reconfigured, or even expanded. The parts could likewise be re-purposed into the starting point for a bunk bed in a few years. A few years after that, some parts could even head off to college to augment or elaborate on whatever passes for dorm furniture. Who knows at this point? The important thing is that she can have fun with it now and I'm not stuck with something unusable eighteen months down the road.

Lessons learned:

• Joinery fantasies tend to fall by the wayside when time is tight. The ladder was to have been a showpiece of through tenons. It's actually butt joints screwed together with cross grain dowels to give the screws something to bite into. Plenty strong and I'll indulge my inner joinery snob later.
  
  
  
  • Never buy birch plywood from a home center. Wretched garbage with voids everywhere and it isn't all that inexpensive to begin with. Many panels had giant blue patches which are, I presume, spots where the veneer is so thin that even the adhesive telegraphs through. Fortunately, I was able to pick and choose which faces go against the wall.
    
  • Make your jigs temporary. An aggregate fourteen different jigs, templates, patterns, and workholding devices went into this thing. Some of them (such as the drilling jig for the posts) were eight feet long. Unless you know right now that you're going to use them again (not "Hmm, this might be useful.") just screw them together, use them, then disassemble them and chuck them in the trash. This gem is a collar that clamps around the end of the posts to give the router a surface to ride on.
    
    
    
    • When dealing with large batch processes, setting up a holding pen for parts about to go through the machine as well as a landing pad for parts just coming off the machine is essential. My car lived out in the elements for weeks and it was a constant ballet in the garage keeping batches of parts together.
      
    • Always inspect salvaged lumber for nails before putting it into the planer. #$^*@#&!
      
    • Construction lumber is 99% garbage; but every now and then something somewhat unique or even pretty sneaks through. The same skill of selecting stock and orienting pieces for grain matching and direction that we use with the good stuff most certainly applies here. This is part of the decking for the second story. A twirling knot in one piece makes some connection with its neighbors.
      

    

    [*]Keep on keeping on. Batching out parts is marvelously accurate and efficient; but it's easy to lose your sense of momentum and progress. I took a diversion to get the floor sections completely done and finished. Even though it would have made more sense to hold off on finishing those parts until everything was ready for oil, I just needed the morale boost.

    [*]In the same vein, always ask yourself what you can do right now to move the ball down the field. Even if it's something as pedestrian as getting parts into the on-deck circle for the next operation, that's fifteen minutes of work/thought that won't slow you down tomorrow.

    Best part: Once assembled, the boss was heard to remark, "I'm sorry I complained about all the dust." And that may be the merriest bit of all.

[jimmykx250]

_Rob-

_{That is one clever playhouse. You obviously put some thought and planning into that and it really shows. I have to say i cant agreee more about the home center plywood I dont bother looking anymore because it's just not worth my time. Very nice work Rob- my two girls have been after me to build them a treehouse!}

[Bombarde16]

Thanks, Jimmy.

The home center stuff is always there, calling seductively and, for some reason, it's hard to let go and admit that you've outgrown it. So many of us cut our teeth on things like trim carpentry around the house and, in fairness, the box store is still a useful place to pick up some things.

Sometimes, a lesson just doesn't stick until you've learned it the hard way.

[sbarton22]

Looks very cool! I really appreciate the serene approach to lessons learned.

The moving the ball line counts toward a lot more than just woodworking. I appreciate the reminder.

[sgregory]

Very cool! I have a (almost) 3 yr old son that would LOVE this! I really like the modular system you created here...as space in our house is limited. Had you considered combining this into a bed / play system? Thats what I was just looking at doing to it!

Once again, Great job!

[Bombarde16]

Had you considered combining this into a bed / play system?

Once again, Great job!

Thanks.

The thought of compatibility with a bed system has crossed my mind, but only in the sense of one possible outcome for what will ultimately become of these parts once she gets bored with them as they are now. The posts would certainly work for a freestanding bunk bed, it'd simply be a matter of building a set of rails (or even a platform) for the mattress.

Trying to incorporate a bed into the playset as-is, however, would be another matter. I built the walls and floor sections based on a 24" square and a twin mattress (39" x 75" plus a little breathing room) doesn't jive too happily with that.

Not impossible. i.e. one of the sides of the mattress platform would be interrupted by an extra post at 24" and then the playset parts would grow off of that. If it's a given that adding a bed section will entail fabricating some new parts, then we'll burn that bridge when we cross it.

Of course, if a playset/bed combo is what you want, then you could design the floor and wall panels on a grid that is sized to mate up nicely with your mattress platform. Sky's the limit.

[Beechwood Chip]

I've had some experience with beds up on platforms. The ones that work best have a bit of storage and flat surfaces for tissues, alarm clock, books, glasses (water and eye), etc. A friend of mine and I built one for his son that was a 4' x 12' area for a bed and a little play area. That was very successful.

[Chris Adkins]

Very cool idea Rob! I love the design. I built a loft bed for our daughter last year with a similar idea in mind. Her bed is about 4' off the ground which gives her a kid hieght play room underneath. She loves it has it set up as a kitchen.

[Chris Adkins]

BTW is that scooter leaning against the playhouse made from wood? Looks cool.

[Bombarde16]

BTW is that scooter leaning against the playhouse made from wood? Looks cool.

'Tis, but I can't claim credit for it.

Smart Balance Bikes

To think, we actually had to learn to ride bikes with training wheels. <sarcasm>I never realized my childhood was so deprived.</sarcasm>

[Bombarde16]

Very cool idea Rob! I love the design. I built a loft bed for our daughter last year with a similar idea in mind. Her bed is about 4' off the ground which gives her a kid hieght play room underneath. She loves it has it set up as a kitchen.

Thanks.

4' is sort of the magic number. You want enough space under there that the kids can play, and also that grownups can muck things out with a vacuum cleaner when needed. But you don't want it so high that you have to clean crayon marks off the ceiling. (We're fortunate to have 9' ceilings in the room in question.) The CDC puts out a set of clinical percentile growth curves that say that 50% of girls should hit 48" tall somewhere between their 7th and 8th birthdays. So it'll be a few years yet before she has to duck her head on the inside.

For the record, our play kitchen languishes out on the deck while this playset has assumed the role of princess castle.

[Beechwood Chip]

I agree that the 4' height works well. When my friends had their second kid, we built a 4' high "shelf". The little one had a cozy "cave" underneath, and the older one had a private play and sleeping area on top. No ladder or stairs, so the little one couldn't disturb her older brother's stuff. They both liked the arrangement so much that when another bedroom became available, neither wanted to leave.