So here’s what was accomplished the last couple of weekends.  As always, it’s piecemeal…a few hours here, a couple there.  One of the design changes we’ve made since the “final” Sketchup design is to extend the front rafters out beyond the roof line.  Also, we switched to 2x8s for the front rafters to both give a more solid look, as well as to have extra depth to allow them to be notched around the lower beams.  Since you really can’t see any of the other rafters from the sides, they really do make the roofline look much more serious.

The cedar shingles look awesome, but they too are not very visible except along the front edge or if you choose to remove an upstairs screen and hang out the window to get a look at them.  With just a little more effort, the playhouse will be dry!   Of course, it’s taken me to the end of the rainy season, so that was bound to happen naturally, anyway

The first few shingles

The first of the larger, notched rafters in the front of the playhouse

The front rafters project out beyond the roofline

More shingles!

Or maybe it was a raccoon, an opossum and a rat.  And it wasn’t in a pub but actually a blue tarp that had been protecting (I use the term loosely) our large stack of stripped down doors until we had time to refinish them.

While doing the annual spring cleaning of our patio, I lifted up said tarp, so that I could relocate the doors, which had been lying across two sawhorses since last summer.  My first thought was that Chloe had picked up a piece of dog poop with something and then put it under the tarp.  That didn’t make sense anyway, but especially not once I grasped the magnitude of the “deposits.”  And once I got over my initial shock, it became clear that at least two different species had been shacking up under our tarp.  I consider myself open-minded, but even I wasn’t comfortable with this type of relationship.

Another possibility is that it was an opossum having a litter of babies on top of our closet door.  I used a scraper and a hose to knock everything off, but as you can see from the picture, there was definitely some damage.  I am hoping that once it’s sanded and refinished with a dark stain, it won’t be too noticeable.  That is not a job I’m looking forward to!

Pre-stained, err...pee-stained

I once again was able to press last year’s scaffolding platforms into service.  By resting them on the 2×6 ties, they turned what would be a monster pain in the ass into a relatively easy project.  As each rafter has gone in, the “floating” beam in the middle moves less and less.  It is really helping to stiffen up the structure.

Work platform #1 in place

8 rafters done!

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