Re: Playhouse Ideas?

[Nehmo Sergheyev]

- Nehmo -

> I'm about to consult with an existing customer on building a

playhouse. They had been considering a kit (I'm not sure which one) that was $13K for materials, but they want to do something a bit less extravagant. I've already decided the playhouse should _not_ be a kit and should match the main house (on the exterior: simple ornamentation, wood-shingle sided, composition roof, two-story gabled 1917 with many windows).

The kids are girls and the older one is now about three +. The father is a surgeon and the mother has an artistic/cultural background.

Has anybody made or designed a successful playhouse? What features should it have?

- Charlie Spitzer -

try rec.woodworking

- Nehmo - You're right. I should have crossed to there too. I did it for this post.

-- ******************** * Nehmo Sergheyev * ********************

[Jim Haynes]

Every summer in Santa Cruz California there is a playhouse competition involving local architects and builders. The eight or so playhouses that get built are displayed in Capitola Mall, where some are auctioned and one is raffled (or something like that). Designs range from miniature houses to things like spaceships and undersea voyagers. One year there was a submarine a la Jules Verne - quite impressive to adults with its simulated steel plate and rivet detailing and big wooden gears, but those features are probably lost on kids. And there have been castles and fire stations and garden sheds and houseboats and train cabooses.

One of the hard things to cope with is that children will grow, so what is a nice miniature scale for a 6 year old will be unusable for a 12 year old. The more successful designs seem to be those that are open to a variety of imaginative uses. The undersea voyaging vehicle doesn't lend itself to much of anything else - and being simulated watertight it gets stuffy and hot in there pretty quick. The most popular designs seem to be those that have two or more levels, slides, ladders, secret doors, swinging ropes, belfries, etc.

You probably won't have heating or cooling or plumbing, so it will be a spring and fall utility. You may want electricity - it might look pretty lighted up at night. You could put in some bunks so the kids and their friends can have sleepovers in it. Then you might have a mosquito problem.

[Chris Merrill]

[gren]

I built one a few years back for my kids. I didn't want an enclosed playhouse I felt that the inside would get filthy from mud, spilt drinks etc. . I wanted one that would get a good cleaning everytime it rained.

There are some very important design consideration that you must take into account when you are building anything that kids are going to play on. Some of the details arn't as obvious as you would think.

The superstructure on my playground is on the outside so that the kids can't climb up and over the top. Sounds silly but that's how most playgrounds are built. Every window, trap door, railing, bridge and swing poses a real damger and needed to be well thoughtout before you begin to build.