Build a Playhouse

Anything "secret" is always cool! A spying scope portal, a hidden cubby, treasure area, telephone. Something with a simple pully system to raise and lower something ( our fort had a plastic trash can lid that we could raise up to it once we had climbed up filled with toys/whatever). Anything old with knobs and dials and buttons - an old radio, CB radio etc. You could make a mini "command center". maybe a place on the wall to hang his pirate sword? On the porch you could put a ship steering wheel so he can pretend it's his boat and he's captain!

- Maybe a little "reading nook" with shelving and a bean bag or arm chair?
- Play kitchen (little boys love them too)
- If you can fit it, we have the KidCraft table that has two chairs and a rolling bin that all "nest" so that the whole thing is maybe 18" x 2". It's great b/c he do read books, do art or puzzles and store it all in the rolling bin!

That sounds really cute. Would you want to try a theme on the inside, like maybe a firehouse, or a train station theme, or dinosaurs or something? If you're going to put in a sink, are you going for a play kitchen idea? You could make a little bunk bed and pretend TV room. I hope you guys have fun.

We had a Little Tykes playhouse on our open back porch. We found that it didn't get used much because I never had time to just hang out in the back yard while my daughter played, and I also worried about snakes and spiders...something we have a lot of in Central FL. When my daughter finally became too tall to go through the door, I decided to buy a loft bed for her bedroom and I'm making a playhouse underneath it instead. a contractor friend is going to make me a "facade" to screw in behind the legs of the bed, complete with windows, door and window flower boxes. I had to search Craig's list to find a white wooden one that is tall enough though because all of the ones that I found in the stores were very short and my daughter is tall. So far this is working out great in her room because she can play in it whenever she wants, in the a/c no spiders or snakes, I can be being productive in other areas of the house at the same time, and getting the bed off of the floor has actaually made her room play area larger.

My Dad built our playhouse too... Our favorite thing about it was that he built it up on stilts, high enough to hook a slide to it. Later on when we were older, we attached a beam and made a rope swing too. That also opened up the bottom area for us to play in, so it was like having a 2-story playhouse. (even though the bottom was completely open, only having the bracing beams about waist-high.