Today was fairly productive, considering that multiple lumber yard visits were made in the morning.  The overall shape of the playhouse is now apparent, as all the beams are in place.  I tacked on an old piece of decking in lieu of a rafter, so that we could see the roof line.  It is quite exciting to see this come to life.  Ginger, of course, still says it’s not a playhouse (no doors!).

Fresh cedar from Mr. Plywood

A post waiting for a beam

Lower beams in place

Not hard to imagine it anymore!

We went through another round of revisions on the playhouse design recently.  What you can’t see in the rendering are the cedar shingles that we’re going to use for the roof.

The ever-changing design

We decided to make it less modern than our original design.

Technically, this should be called part 29, because it feels like we’ve been here before

Yesterday was our annual we’d-better-get-out-and-cut-down-the-3-foot-tall-weeds-before-they-swallow-children-or-pets event.  As anyone who lives in the Pacific NW knows, springtime makes everything grow like it’s in a jungle.  It makes things very pretty, except in our yard, which is about 90% weeds.

We are committed to some big changes this year, so keep checking in to see it evolve…

The weeds will take back over as soon as we go to sleep

I finally remembered to pick up some concrete, so that I could pour the final footing, in the front right corner of the playhouse.   This hardly warrants its own post, but I just wanted to show that there is actually some progress!

Should stay put!

Me – “Ginger, how do you like your playhouse?”

Ginger – “That’s not a playhouse, it’s just a bunch of wood!”

Technically, she’s correct, but we were hoping to see a little more enthusiasm(!) along the way.  On the other hand, Chloe is already really pumped up about it.

Healthy skepticism

We need walls here...and here...and here!

Ready for "tracking" (which we think means 'trek' or 'explore')

Now this is more like it!  It took 6 hours of planing, sawing and screwing yesterday, but we now have something that kids (and adults) can use.  I am trying my best to convince the girls that imaginary walls are just as good or better than the real thing, but they’re not buying it!

We are really happy with the way our salvaged cedar worked out.  It is just amazing how intact it can look once 1/8″ or so is stripped off.  There were a few that I had to give up on, since they were weathered too deeply, but as you can see, I was able to “fix” enough to create the entire deck surface.  Click here to see my “before” and “after” sample pieces.  And we’ve got lots of shorter pieces left over that we can use for other projects.

Wet

And dry.

A few hours here and there led to some decent progress this weekend.  First, I trenched a path for the drain pipe that would later be buried under the playhouse.  This is actually a long overdue project, as our patio roof drains a ton of water, which would tend to want to flow right around the patio and towards the house.  We’ve had a semi-functional temp solution going for the last 5 years, but this is the first time we’ve actually taken charge of the drainage.  We will extend the pipe as we rework our landscape in the side yard, but already we can see a huge difference in how muddy the playhouse area is.

Also, Chloe and I finished the structure of the deck.  Because the pier blocks do not give much lateral support to the posts, I added much more bracing and blocking than might normally be done on such a small deck.  This is the first free-standing deck I have ever built, as all the others have attached to a house or porch.  I would now recommend that anybody building something like this not use pier blocks as their foundation.  The lack of side-to-side strength coupled with our minimalistic design (joists nailed between posts instead of the more typical method of bolting through them) has made it a real challenge to make the playhouse feel solid.  The last thing I did that helped quite a bit was to run countersunk lag screws through the top of the perimeter joists at an angle down into the posts.  I am confident that once the deck boards go on and we are able to add some angle bracing to the posts, it will all work out just fine.  But, if we could go back to the planning stage, I would have poured my own footings and used the more heavy duty post anchors.  Another option would have been to sink longer posts directly into concrete, but I’ve seen too many such non-pressure-treated posts eventually rot out.

Next weekend I’ll start planing down some cedar and hopefully get the deck finished!  On another note, we decided to take the word playhouse literally and leave the front entirely open, so the girls can use it as a stage.  We will install a curtain that they can use to close the front whenever and however they want.  It’s another idea that helps make it “theirs” while keeping it useful for us after they’ve tired of it

Drain pipe ran under the playhouse

Corner bracing and center joist

Joists and blocking

Another baby step, but that’s more than I usually accomplish on a weeknight.  Last night Chloe was all pumped about “working on the playhouse,” so I agreed to head outside with her and Ginger.  I managed to add in the final piece of the perimeter structure…the 4×6 pressure treated beam that we dug out of the yard back in 2005.  If you look closely in this post, you can see the 4×6 terracing the side yard before we regraded it.   The hunk of wood is now acting as the rear joist in their playhouse.

Inching closer

Last night I had a little time and was able to set the 4th post.  Chloe helped me get everything lined up by holding the tape measure and the square.  We got the diagonal measurements within 1/4″, so I’m quite happy about that.  Later today I’ll dump some concrete around the pier block so that we can build the rest of the structure next weekend.

Looks just like a poster bed

A little.  Most exciting is that our neighbors (thanks, Brooks & Marcia!) did give us all their old cedar, so we’ve got a huge stash of 10′ pieces.  While some are in really bad shape, most are salvageable.  I have a little electric hand planer, and you can see how great the cedar looks after I removed the weathered layers.

I’ve got 3 posts installed, as well as two of the joists.  As always, I’m slightly unsatisfied with the way I decided to build it.  I thought the pier blocks would save some time and allow for easier positioning, but they kind of end up being a pain in the butt as I need to fine-tune their positions.  Next time I will put the time in up front to lay out precise string lines and use a plumb bob to pour footings and set my own anchors.  Of course, then I’m sure I’ll be cursing that method and wishing I had used pier blocks

One funny thing happened along the way…on Sunday night I noticed that two of my bags of concrete were too close to one of the leaks in our patio roof, and the torrential rain was getting them wet.  Not wanting to waste them, I went out in the rain to do an emergency mix and add the concrete to one of my pier blocks.   Also, I had had to temporarily disconnect the pipe that diverts our patio roof runoff, so it had dumped a ton of water into my footing hole.  I was actually displacing the water as I added concrete to the hole.  I can’t remember being in a wetter of muddier situation, but I just couldn’t let $5 worth of concrete go to waste, could I?

View from the patio

View if hanging out the dining room window

Our stash

Good as new!