It was not meant to be

[pegkerr]

I got all excited when I saw this lovely little playhouse in the newspaper.



Not in pink, probably, but they also carry it in white, cream, tan, clay, brown, grey and blue. Hey, Memorial Day sale. Maybe we can get a deal. So I called the store.

Um, no. 6' x 8' without the porch is $2,000.00.

6' x 8' with the porch is $2,600.00.

I am very glad I didn't show the pictures to the girls and get their hopes up. As it was, it was bad enough that I got my own heart broken.

(Oh, they would have loved it so . . .)

Anyone have any idea on where I could get a nice playhouse that a mere mortal could afford? One that doesn't cost as much as a used car?

Edited to add: Rob has been promising to build one for years. But I know my husband, and I know that Mr. Procrastinator will never never never do so. It makes me kinda mad that he has been stringing the girls along on promises, and I don't want him to do that anymore. I want to get something for them this year--they're getting old enough that they wouldn't enjoy it much longer. I certainly don't have time or energy to attempt something like this myself when I'm clueless as to how to do it.

Edited to add again:: My neighbor found this site, which has the house available as a ready to assemble kit. Cuts the cost, but not enough.

Comments

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

This is when it would be useful to have grandparents with power tools, I think.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

And hey, my parents have built houses. They have been active in Habitat for Humanity for years. Alas, they live in Georgia, thousands of miles away.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

My father is great with power tools, and he actually built one for us--a little smaller, the doorway at the end, made with bits and pieces picked up who knows where. We loved it--Mom used it for a tool shed for a while after we grew up. BUt she couldn't keep the small neighborhood children out of it, and she didn't want the responsibility of them (she couldn't go grocery shopping because she couldn't find mothers! Boy, THOSE were different days....) SO they gave it away to a family with small children.

I regret it, but not as much as the witches costumes Mom made for B and I--we wore them two years, then B and K wore them--and then she gave them away!

Never occurred to her that something like that could be as much of a treasure as a christening dress...

Hope you're feeling better! (I'm reading backwards, so may discover an update in here...)

[sternel.livejournal.com]

My parents used to get gigantic cardboard boxes for us, the kind refrigerators and washing machines come in. Dad would cut out window shutters and we'd take our crayons and design our own houses in them. Wallpaper, carpets, curtains, the works. And we'd play in it for a week and then it would rain and the box would melt and they would get a new one and we'd make a new house. It was great.

(And when we got sick of house? We'd put it on its end, slither in through the window on the side, and call it a rocket ship. I have visited most of the solar system, Vulcan, Alpha Centuri... =D)

[aerden.livejournal.com]

You rock! I used to like playing in old boxes, too. :)

Chantal

[aome.livejournal.com]

My dad did this too - painted flowers on the side, used a cardboard half-gallon milk carton as a chimney (painted bricks on a piece of paper, then glued/taped it to the carton, arched the box flaps up to make a roof, cut a square hole and stuck the 'chimney' in), cut in doors and windows, etc. I played with mine inside, so there wasn't the 'melt in the rain' problem, but making a new one all the time would be fun, too.

My mother's playhouse solution (which Fiona is, alas, probably too big for already) was to make a close-fitting floor-length tablecloth (tailored to fit straight down all four corners of our kitchen table), with a door and window. So - my 'playhouse' was under the kitchen table. Still have it, for our girls, now. Unfortunately, it fits our old (smaller) kitchen table, which is currently disassembled in our storage cubbyhole, and we don't really have a good place to put it at the moment.

[aerden.livejournal.com]

Aw, man! That is adorable. I wouldn't want it in pink, either. I'd go for light blue or a sunny yellow.

Perhaps there are carpentry kits you could find on the web which would help you build something similar?

Chantal

Build one

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

When I was four, the summer after my brother died, my mother spent her energy running around town to building supply places, asking for scraps and advice. She built me a playhouse out of hand-me-down lumber and shingle bits, with Dutch doors and a window box on the window, and cabinets and shelves inside, and wired for light (inside light and a porch light), with a mailbox a neighbor made from a big Hi-C can with a flag that *worked*!!! Power came from an extension cord run out of my brother's window. We just shut the window on the cord and it stayed that way for years. It was white with pink trim and accents.

We unplugged it when I was about 13, I think. I also raised puppies in there and had various short-lived secret clubs and for a while did my homework there. I could run record players and radios because Mom put in a plug, too.

Dad and my brothers finally tore it down when I was at college. And not because it was sagging anywhere, either; it just looked run-down.

Point being--just start building! Use what you have and ask for what you don't and if you don't know how to wire a light or make a shelf, ask somebody. It works. And I got to be part of all of the gathering and planning and building and painting.

~Amanda

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

You might check kiddie consignment shops, although they usually have the cast-off plastic ones.

However, I can attest that castoff Macintosh boxes from Mr. PH's work have made Meg very happy in their new role as a duplex playhouse. A bit small for your girls, but the washer/dryer boxes would work. And can be painted nicely.

[demarazare.livejournal.com]

When I was little my parents made one for my brother and I. It had plywood walls and old cupboard doors for a door and window. It was painted white with a red roof, and my mom painted tulips around the base. She also made lacey curtains to hang on the window, and I believe it had a small table that was also a cupboard door on hinges, so we could pull it out or collapse it for extra room.

When we moved out of suburbia, the playhouse was put at the bottom of our driveway and used as a bus stop of sorts. It protected us from the rain and wind.

When I was in high school it was getting pretty old, though, and since my parents are firefighters (and me now, too, but not then) they burned it for training.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I've no idea what materials cost, but my brother is a handy guy, builds sheds and such. I bet he could build one for a few hundred dollars (plus materials). he scrounged the materials for the excellent shed he built, which cost him $30, he proudly reported.

K. [conveniently, he lives here, not in Georgia]

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Maybe I can talk further with you about this tonight.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Another idea might be to find a more affordable structure of the right approximate dimensions that's meant as a storage shed (they're still not super-cheap, from what I've seen, but they've got to be less than *that*), which the girls could have as a 'fixer-upper.' It would provide a sound structure (leak-proof roof, etc.) to start with, and then part of the fun of playing with/in it could be repainting, figuring out how to add windows, trim, etc. They'd have something to play in and furnish and so forth right from the beginning, and then they could also improve it as they went along, and feel proud of it. You could take copious pictures.

Because I figure a playhouse is good, but that would be like a playhouse and an on-going Activity to get invested/interested in.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

That's adorable. Maybe post to Freecycle and see if anyone wants to get rid of their old one?

[laurel]

I was lucky, my Grandpa Olson built me one in pieces (he lived in South Dakota), then hauled it up here and assembled it in the back yard for me (and my brother). My Mom painted flowers on the outside of it.

I didn't use it as much as I really should've, even though I liked it. I was a wimp about the bugs that would show up in it!

[whapnoggin.livejournal.com]

My own dad made the same (empty) promise...of course he always meant to, but there was the lawn to mow, the roof to reshingle....

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Do you not see any places that sell such structures (and playsets) when you drive out hickwards?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Well, we haven't really done much looking for playhouses yet.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

My father had salvaged the big boxes that high-school desks came in. When we got bored, he'd set up a box in the corner of the basement (no gluing, so it needed two walls to hold it up.) He would cut an I shape to make windows with shutters, tape paper towels to the inside of the window for curtains, and draw flowers along the outside. And maybe he cut the flaps in half to make dutch doors.

My youngest sibling had a playhouse in the laundry room under the basement stairs. My brothers helped her set it up, and I bought her a housewarming card.

[naomikritzer]

Two ideas to mull over:

1. A sunflower house, if you have a sunny yard. You dig a circular trench, plant sunflowers in a circle, and morning glories between the sunflowers. The sunflowers provide the structure, the morning glories fill in the gaps. When the sunflowers hit a certain height, you can make a roof by providing string supports for the morning glories. I have a book that talks in more detail about how to do this, and I know someone who's done it. My sunflowers never grow much taller than about three feet and my morning glories are always a miserable failure, but you seem to be a better gardener than me (and I don't have a particularly sunny yard). Another way to make a natural playhouse is the bean teepee: you get a bunch of really tall poles, shove them in the ground on one end and tie them together at the top, and plant pole beans. As a bonus, you get a huge harvest of beans.

2. Something like this: http://www.growingtreetoys.com/product/5110 -- if you google for "play canopy" you'll find lots more. They're not sturdy enough to leave outside all the time but if you have a tree with a convenient overhanging branch, you can set them up to play in on sunny days. I always drool over the play canopies when I see them in catalogs -- Molly is only barely old enough to take an interest in them, but I have wanted one since first laying eyes on the things. They're expensive, but much, much, much less expensive than the beautiful wood playhouses that I also drool over. (They'd also be fairly easy to make.)

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

I'm showing this to my mother for my niece...and started laughing. I'd have it sent to St. Paul and save the $200 in shipping for going across the Mississippi River to Mpls. *grins*

It's not that hard to find them cheaper...