After my bathroom remodel, I had a pile of discarded lumber in the backyard. The kids said, “Why don’t you build a playhouse out of it?”  I thought about the old lumber, and the discarded paneling on the front porch, and the leftover vinyl siding that’s been in the basement for a few years. OK! I’ll build a playhouse! We have a spot in the backyard that the previous owner had covered in concrete, for what reason no one knows, but it will do fine for a playhouse floor. We had been using it for bonfires, so there was about a foot of wet cinders and bricks to clear away and clean up. The house itself took a couple of weeks of pondering and planning, and I decided to buy some new 2x4s for the upright beams (for strength). If the kids were much younger, I’d opt for pressure-treated lumber, which is expensive and much harder to work with, but lasts a long time. My kids are nine and ten, so if this thing lasts one or two years, that will suffice.

I began with the frames for the front and back, completely from 2x4s. The uprights and crossbars are five feet long. The trusses were an adventure. I wish I could tell you I worked the dimensions out mathematically, calculating the hypotenuse of the angle, but no. I just eyeballed it, using the three-foot boards leftover from my uprights. The only saw I used was a jigsaw, which I’m pretty good with. Yeah, a mitre saw would have been better, but I didn’t want to invest in new tools for a recycling project. There is no outdoor electrical outlet near the backyard, however, so all my sawing was done in the front yard.

As with any rectangular building, it needed corner bracing. Lots of it. I thought it would be easy if I just bought some shelf brackets and screwed them on. Those were useful for temporarily holding the front and back frames together til I got them on site, but I ended up using lots of scrap pieces for diagonal braces, too. It didn’t help that I had very few nails more than two inches long. Lowe’s only sold them in ten-dollar boxes, so I just made do with what I had... some long nails, some staples, some U-nails, and the shelf brackets.

 

In the front piece, I framed the door opening with my last 2x4s, and added framing at the bottom. If I had to do it again, I’d frame across the bottom of the door opening, too. Then I moved the project to the backyard site.

The only part I needed help with was connecting the front to the back. I used a combination of new 6’ 1x4s and recycled lumber. The kids had to hold up the front and back frames while I connected the first side beams. Other than that, this was a one-person project. I added more diagonal braces for all three dimensions. The anti-twist braces double as corner shelves. I didn’t eyeball these, but used a true 45-degree angle to cut them. I used nails to connect them to 2x4s and screws to connect them to 1x4s (two or three in every corner). There’s nothing in the world more useful than a cordless drill with screwdriver bits! Still, my left thumb won't be the same for a while after I whacked it with a hammer, oh, maybe a dozen times.

The leftover vinyl siding will made a decent waterproof roof. Learning to cut it was a pain. I ruined a good pair of everyday scissors cutting the siding. Then I thought of the toughest, sharpest, most leverage-friendly tool I have... my tree-loppers. They don’t cut nice clean lines, but it got the job done! As I added siding up the roof, I thought about snow and how it would weigh the roof down. So I added some thin boards as support underneath. It won’t add much support, since there’s no upright beams under them, but it might keep the siding from bowing in too much under snow weight.

The upper part of the roof required me to get on a ladder (a six-foot ladder, much bigger than the one in the picture), which was OK except that there was no level ground near the back of the playhouse. I kept my phone in my pocket, in case I fell and broke something. Like my neck. I finished off the roof with the one piece of corner soffit I had left. Not aesthetically pleasing with the tabs showing, but it will get the job done. The roof siding overhangs several inches in the back and sides and even more in the front.

The side walls are made of old paneling taken from the remodeled bathroom. I nailed it to the outside of the uprights. I had to add one-inch shims to balance the sides, since the side beams were nailed to the outside of the front and back frames. I left an inch or so free at the bottom to keep the walls from soaking up rainwater. To do this, I stood my wall on my foot while nailing. I used a couple of nails on each panel, but attached most of it with a staple gun. No one piece of paneling was enough for any wall. One wall was a spare piece of shower enclosure leftover from the previous bathroom remodel... it had been in the attic for fifteen years! I figured it would be tough enough to support a window. Cutting a hole in the middle of this panel was one of the more difficult parts of the project. Between that, cutting the siding with scissors, and hammering my thumb, I was glad most of this was done while the kids were in school. There are certain words I don't want to contribute to their vocabulary!

A window was neccessary so the kids could have sunlight inside. I had saved a plexiglass panel from the old storm door that was recently replaced. It had a metal frame, so I couldn’t just nail it into a wall panel. I used some metal door handles salvaged from a set of kitchen cabinets. I used metal screws and nuts to attach the handles to the wall panel, then slid the window into the bottom two corners. Then I added the top two corners, so the plexiglass is not going anywhere that the wall doesn’t go. I added duct tape around the backside for strength, since I tore some corners of the panel a little when making the hole.

More vinyl siding on the outside walls now. I was halfway through with this project when I found that siding panels will snap together (duh) and stay in place long enough to attach them! That made the short pieces around the window work, since there was no upright to attach them to near the window. If I’d known the snapping secret when doing the roof, it would have made life easier. But you live and learn. Oh yeah, I made sure to measure the house again before cutting the siding, since my dimensions “grew” from the outside beams, paneling, and shims.

I measured the door frame and had to “readjust” (meaning: shove) the bottom of the house to match. Thats why I should’ve had a beam all the way across the bottom of the front. My first idea for a door was to use a shower curtain, but as  my plans evolved, I decided that wasn’t good enough. I built a frame using old boards measured and mitered, connected with staples and braces, and used the leftover piece from the shower enclosure to cover the frame. It wasn’t big enough, but I convinced the kids that they needed a “peephole” in the door.The door was hung using hinges from the aforementioned kitchen cabinets. To keep the door from swinging in, I slapped up a small piece of wood on the inside corner of the doorframe. It also swung way out, so after I finished the vinyl siding on the front, I added a door bolt the kids are supposed to use when they leave the house. I found another cabinet handle to use as a door handle, although it didn't match the hinges (or anything else). The eaves of the house are left open for ventilation. The roof overhang will keep rain from going in through the trusses. I am considering adding screen material sometime before next summer, unless the kids talk me into stained glass or something.

The kids loved it! They immediately went to work adding decorations (which involved me screwing hooks in the interior) and furniture. A plant hanger outside can hold a plant in the summer, or a bucket in winter. A bucket? I made a note to pick up a windchime for them when I can. Princess drew up a set of rules for their house. Click to enlarge if you want to read them.

If you want to build a much better playhouse, you can spend some bucks and follow the 21 pages of instructions here. Or get really fancy with these. IF you have a workshop full of tools, these plans are easy to follow!

I didn’t consult these, or any existing plans before plunging into my project, just made it up as I went along. The kids actually asked for a treehouse first, but I said no for many reasons, mainly because I’d probably kill myself building one. But if you are so inclined, there are instructions here and here.

Thought for today: Play is the highest form of research. -Albert Einstein

DIY playhouse building project children