Building a playhouse.
We've talked about it for a couple of years now, the idea of building a playhouse for the kids. K had one growing up. In fact, it's still standing in her parents' backyard.
The options we considered were:
- Buy a little pre-fab playhouse at Costco or Wayfair and they'll get a few years use out of it (more H than S at this point)
- For about the same cost, build our own and intend to use it as a shed once they inevitably grow out of it
Naturally, we went with option #2. We like to build things, afterall. On Easter Sunday, we got to work and leveled the ground.
The day before, our neighbor and friend John drove me to the landscaping place in town. He had a trailer that could a) hold 6,000 pounds and b) had a hydraulic lift. Score. So we got, yep, six thousand pounds of pea gravel (three yards).
S helped heave it uphill with his wheelbarrow…
Then we leveled that, too.
I set four concrete blocks, one in each corner, and leveled them. We'd build the frame from 2x6s set on the blocks.
H was also a big helper…
With the floor joists level, we laid the subfloor using 3/4" OSB before beginning to frame the walls.
Splurging on a good ol' Harbor Freight framing gun made the job a heck of a lot easier. In short order, K and I were standing the walls up and beginning to put this thing together.
Then it was time for the rafters. I used a jigsaw to make the birdsmouth cuts. John later noted framers use a circ saw to make the cuts and finish them off with a handsaw. That would have resulted in more square cuts. Noted for the next time I'm building something with rafters…
Next was sheathing. We used 7/16" CDX ply. Not knowing how the construction pros do it, I thought to myself it'd be a lot easier just hanging full sheets and cutting them off with a circ saw (vs. measuring and cutting everything down in our driveway with the table saw). For the windows, I'd cut them out from the inside with a sawzall. Spoiler: it worked like a charm.
Worth noting: all of the edges and corners will be covered by trim which is why I wasn't worried about roughly hacking them off for now.
With that process, the walls went up quickly. We had some cool weather during construction.
Along with iced coffees…
The last few steps before we roll on primer were:
- Install 30-lb roofing felt
- Caulk the plywood seams and nail holes
- Cut and install the fascia
When installing the felt, I took the time to snap chalk lines along the rafters. The nails were 1-1/2" long and the plywood was only 1/2" thick. I didn't want anyone to impale their head on the inside of the fort. The result: no exposed nails.
That's where it stands. Literally, heh. We're probably 80% finished. We have to prime, hang all the exterior trim, install the roofing panels and paint. Speaking of painting, here's sort of our color scheme…
We think it's going to look pretty cool. S already has a box filled on our front porch of all the things he's going to put in his new fort. That's pretty cool. It makes all the effort worth it.
