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!

Yesterday I dug holes and placed the pier block footings.  I think I got them all placed well, but I always find this kind of work challenging.  Not only is there no existing point-of- reference, but it’s on ground that slopes in two dimensions.  I will add concrete around the pier blocks once I’ve added the posts and ensure that my footings are set correctly.  I also had to relocate some plants to make room for the playhouse, but the great thing is that our landscaping  now looks much more complete!

Pier blocks set into holes

Arrows showing footing locations

We’ve been promising to build the kids a playhouse for a couple of years now, so we decided that we’d better get to it before they are old enough to move out of the house!  We have been working on the design for awhile now, and we think that we’re going for a modern look (horizontal cedar screening) combined with the post and beam structure of our front porch.

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

I got the  bug to pick back up where we left off on the downstairs hall closet (abandoned stairwell).  Back in 2007, we started converting the steps into proper shelves, but we’ve done nothing but pile more crap into the closet since then.  Over the last week, I finally brought some power (including a light) and some network cables for our wireless router into the formerly uncivilized space.  I’ve been wanting to move the router to the ground floor for a long time, because it performed pretty poorly in the basement utility room, being blocked by the ductwork and the furnace.

While I was at it, I relocated our phone’s base station here, too, since it suffered from the same problems as the wi-fi.  Both are working much better than they were before.  And if you’re wondering why I did such an overkill, industrial job with the electric conduit, it’s because I scavenged about 200′ of conduit and dozens of handy boxes when my company’s office was being remodeled a few years ago.  The contractor was going to send it all of for scrap, so I grabbed as much of it as I could.  It’s been taking up space in the garage for over 3 years, so I get all excited any chance I get to pull out the conduit bender and actually get to use some of it!

Conduit and cat5, oh my!

A few weeks ago we found our porch light in the Rejuvenation scratch-n-dent room.  Over the years we’ve found many fixtures in there.  It’s hit-or-miss, but this time we think we really lucked out!

Night shot

Day shot