A Display Of My Mad Carpentry Skills

I am building my little girl a playhouse in our backyard.  I went to Lowe’s yesterday and purchased some lumber and some plywood and I have built the playhouse’s foundation.  I’ll include some pictures at the bottom of this post.  I purchased about 10 2 by 6’s and 3 sheets of plywood.  My cost, so far, including the lumber, plywood, and some nails, is about $150.  I used treated 2 by 6’s and treated plywood for the foundation, and treated materials cost a little more than non-treated.  My little girl is 7, she is awesome, she asked for a playhouse, and so I’m going to give it my best shot.

I enjoyed going to Lowe’s and purchasing the supplies.  Picking out a location for the playhouse was pretty simple, as was setting up the concrete blocks to go under it.  I will be adding a few more blocks today.  I only used 4 to begin with, and I have decided that I really need 8 or 12.  I want the building to be very stable.  The only “problem” that I had was that my second sheet of plywood needed to be cut, and cutting an 8 by 4 piece of plywood by yourself can be a challenge.  The plywood “snapped” as I was getting close to the end of my cut, so one end is a little ugly.  But, once I add my walls and some siding and some carpet, no one will notice (or care).  My daughter is SUPER-excited about having a playhouse.

Dimensions…

The foundation is 12 x 8.  The entire structure will be covered by a shingled roof.  The enclosed portion of the playhouse will be 9 x 8, and it will have a 3 x 8 porch.  I have yet to decide how tall the playhouse should be.  (I’m designing it as I go.  Originally, I was going to build a storage shed/playhouse, but I wanted my daughter to have her own special place.)  I will (probably) go with standard 8 foot walls, and build a small loft at the back end.  I want it to have a “cabin-like” feel.  The outside will be yellow (or khaki) and it will have a door on the front, and windows on the left and right side.  The back will be “solid”.  I am undecided as to whether or not I will run electricity to the playhouse.  I have an old air conditioning unit that I could fit into a window, but that might be a bit “much”.  I’ll let you know.

(As for the bathroom remodel, all is going well.  The walls are ready for painting and the window is doing fine.)

Pictures (I included the shovel so that you could get a better understanding of the size of the foundation.  Why a shovel?  It was on the ground right before I snapped the pictures.)