Building an Outdoor Playhouse
Posted August 12th, 2006 @ 04:27pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I'd like to build an outdoor playhouse for my kiddo. I'm envisioning something I can build myself. I'm picturing a sand box below an upper floor (the actual "playhouse"), which would have walls and a ceiling, of course. Perhaps a slide would come out, perhaps a lower deck, and of course a ladder to get up into the playhouse.
I don't need (nor do we have the room for) a swingset off to the side. We have about 9' x 20' in the back yard for the playhouse.
These things seem to cost about $800-$1000. I'm thinking I can do it for a lot less. Has anyone done something similar? Are plans, materials lists, etc. available online somewhere (even if they cost money, though free would be ideal of course)?
Donate Life
Posted 12 Aug 2006 at 5:40pm #
We picked up the $1K set at Sam's earlier this year for our kiddo, but it has a swing portion which you don't require. If I recall correctly, Lowe's has a section in the outdoor/garden center where you can find various pieces to assemble yourself in to a playset of "your own design". I have no idea how much it might cost in total; I just remember walking by the rack of items when I was there looking for a deck box.
Posted 12 Aug 2006 at 8:20pm #
I highly recommend CedarWorks. It is a little pricey but it is worth the money. The wood is extremely high quality, better than anything you could buy yourself at a lumber yard. It is delivered all cut and drilled with pretty easy instructions to assemble.
I have the Gazebo, which is what you would want. It has a sandbox beneath, with a platform above to which you can attach ramps, rockwalls and slides. I also have a swing ladder attached, but their stuff is all mix and match and they have a Flash-based configurator that knows what works and does not.
I do not recall their prices, but I think just a gazebo will be over $1K. However, this is something that will easily last for more than 10 years. The cedar ages gracefully enough, and it assembles/disassembles so well, that you could even resell it. Whatever you buy will get a lot of use over the years, so I think having quality wood is worth it. You cannot get a splinter from this wood if you tried. It is also naturally insect-resistant and we have had no bugs after having big problems with bugs on our plastic stuff. I have seen other sets that are 6-7 years old from them and they still look great, the wood really weathers nicely.
Mark
Posted 12 Aug 2006 at 10:37pm #
Last time I was at the big box hardware store, I priced (10) 2 x 4 x 8 studs and (2) 4 x 8 sheets (This would make a typical 8 foot square wooden wall, with studs at 16 inches apart, around 100 dollars per wall, or floor unit... A simple cube of six of these would be six hundred bucks. I may have specified pressure treated.
You would probably want thicker beams if actually supporting weight, such as a floor for the little one, but I think the 10 studs and 2 sheets for an 8 foot wall unit is a useful rule of thumb to consider. I was thinking of a walk in shelter to feed the pets outdoors at the time.
The type of play unit you are describing could actually have a lot of open walls and save a bit on this estimate- may want to play around in OmniGraffle or such to figure a rough idea to guestimate costs, then see if what actual existing plans beat that.