The rest of the family was out of town, so Chloe and I spent some time Saturday making a new step.  We made it a full 6′ wide for aesthetic reasons, although 1/2 of it serves no purpose, as it’s in front of the non-opening portion of the door.  We used some left-over 4×6 pieces that were cut from the playhouse beams, as well as another piece of cedar recycled from our neighbor’s deck.  The construction was deceptively complex, as our patio has a slight slope down to the left, so each 4×6 had to be cut at an angle and to the appropriate height to make the steps level.  Needless to say, I botched a couple and had to do some “fine tuning.”  The top of the step is standard 2×6 cedar decking (new), and the trim piece that wraps around underneath the steps is actually made of cedar fence stock.

That trim piece is something that I am particularly proud of.  When Chloe and I were shopping for the piece, I initially picked out a beautiful piece of 1×6 cedar.  I was a little reluctant about the nearly $11 price tag, since it was yet one more wound in the constant bleeding of our wallets.  In the next aisle, I noticed some 1/2″x6×6 pieces of rough cedar fencing.  While most were the typical broken, knotty pieces, some didn’t look too bad.  After going through about 50 pieces, I managed to find two that were nearly knot-free.  As they were only $1.75/each, I decided to get a couple and take a chance.  Well, to my surprise, they sanded down beautifully, and they look like knot-free, Grade A cedar.  Not bad for $3.50 (and the 15 minutes it took to find the only two pieces that had this potential.)

Step construction, confused Zoe

A wary Porter tests the new step

Completed step. Someone should really fill in that hole in the concrete.

Rough v. Sanded

Initially, we are going to build just the roof and the floor.  This will essentially be a wall-less gazebo, which we can flesh out later.  After pricing out the clear cedar strips, we realized that it will be pretty expensive to complete our design, so we may go with plywood walls with shakes.   But by getting something started, we can at least get the girls a place of their own* pretty quickly.

*we are being sneaky and trying to design a structure that will work as a playhouse, yet be able to serve a future life as an entertainment area once they’ve gotten too old.

Our neighbor has been removing his old cedar decking and replacing it with Trex, so it looks like we will be able to finish the entire floor of the playhouse for free!

Keep in mind that this design is pretty conceptual at this point, and we’ve been playing with a lot of different ideas.  If you have any suggestions, thr0w ‘em our way!

Playhouse Concept #1

• strip and re-finish front door
• finish sidelights and trim around front door
• touch up the trim around 6 windows with bronze paint
• paint and install 2 more storm windows
• paint exposed trim on back dormer
• add trim around back dormer windows
• rebuild rotted posts and railings in front of porch

Considering where we started, that is a teeny little list.  It may or may not all get done this fall, but we are at least weather-tight and ready for the rain now.

Sidelights look much more distinguised with their new bronze paint

Bronze-painted storm windows re-installed

All rafters painted!

The lazy (but fast) way out of the mess of a back dormer...covering it with metal!

Looks done from this angle (except for the plywood, of course)

Considering it was a weekend of mediocre productivity (my helper couldn’t make it on Saturday, and I only worked two shorter days), we still accomplished quite a bit.  The key is that we have so many different little projects and areas going at once that it feels like we’re constantly knocking things out. Here is a shot of the side yard, with the scaffolding now in it’s 8th position.  If I were starting all over, I think I would have dumped another $60 into the thing and extended it enough to cover a full side of the house.  I’m always having to manage around the scaffold’s position, so at times it can get inefficient.  Such as when it has to get left in place while we’re waiting for paint to dry for touch-ups.  But regardless, we’re actually done now with all the walls (yes!), so it’s only purpose in life is to serve as a platform for the straggler rafter tails and accompanying gutter.

And what do you do when a windowsill is too messed up to save?  Well, if it’s on a dormer that’s tucked way up in the back of your house where no one can see it, you just cover it with sheet metal!  I couldn’t figure out any way to salvage the chewed up thing, so I found flashing in the perfect size and just encased it.  I will paint it to match the rest of the trim, just in case anyone goes to the back corner of the yard and looks up, but I can pretty much guarantee that nobody will see my “cheat.”  This worked so well that I am also going to cover the gable ends with metal.  These areas just aren’t worth spending the hours and hours they’d require to do it right, and I’m in a rush to at least get this area good enough to make it through winter intact.

Galvanized sill

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any moldings that matched the profile of our drip cap.  McCoy had one that looked right, but it was 1/2″ narrower than ourso match our house’s (F890 on pg 27 of their molding catalog.)  So, I ended up buying a Cedar 4×4 and table-sawing my way to new drip caps.  I can’t remember which took longer, making them or installing them, but they came out great.  Sadly, my “brilliant” idea of adding  a drip groove feature to the caps was one of short-lived glory.  Once I installed the molding below, I realized that my groove was going to be covered by caulk

Horizontal cap + rain = not so good

Old v. new

8° of freedom

Not yet rotten!