Playroom - a Family Project for Christmas

This Christmas we decided we need to get rid of stuff instead of buying new stuff.  So we decided as a family to clear out our storage room and turn it into a playroom. All seven of the kids and my husband all helped out.  In fact, he actually did pretty much all of the traditional Christmas stuff that I'm always in charge of because I was too busy with the project.  He is the best husband ever! We worked all week and even on Christmas eve to finish it. We also did some other building that day: we built healthier gingerbread houses with Graham crackers and cream cheese frosting and berries. They were delicious. I highly recommend using fruit over candy! 

Anyway, I am so disappointed that I didn't think to take a before picture,  but imagine a VERY full room filled with shelves stuffed full of storage and the small floor area that remains is taken up by a bed that barely fits in there so you have to crawl into it from the foot of the bed.  That is what our storage room was. It was bad - really bad. Since the goal was to avoid buying stuff,  we reused the lumber from the shelves to build more decorative toy storage and a playhouse. It turned out SO cute!

The playhouse opens up to the space under the stairs and we added a little "dog house" under the lowest part of the stairs for the animals pull-toys (but it is big enough for the kids to have fun playing inside there as well so I may add a light later on).  Of course, the one stud bay we chose to add the door in had an electrical wire running through it, so we added 2 junctions on either side (one outlet inside the playhouse and a porchlight on the outside).  We added a doorbell, that the kids love to push over and over (even though we haven't had time to build the door yet).  We used plexiglass for the windows so they would be safer in the play area than glass.  We had planned to paint the "siding" but it looked so good natural that we left it.  I had already built the window boxes out of natural wood so they blend in but I might want to paint them later. They look better in real life than in the picture with their fake lambs ear and boxwood.  And, because our area of the country doesn't readily sell cedar shingles, my husband suggested we use shims, which look really good too.  He's so smart!  And, we put in a foam flooring mats that look surprisingly good (like wood flooring) that we bought from WeSellMats.  They look quite good and feel really good to walk on.

We ran out of time before completing the project so I will be adding pictures as we add more to the room.  Like I mentioned, we still need to add a little dutch door to the playhouse.  We also have a little mailbox to add to the playhouse, climbing wall hand-holds and plywood to add a climbing wall, gymnastic rings and a hammock chair to hang from the ceiling, and open shelving to hang above the toy shelves to display all our wooden toys.  Down the road, we are planning to add a stage as well for all the costumes and puppets.  But, apparently, projects go much slower when you are doing them with little kids than they do when you are alone.  Imagine that!  Haha!

 UPDATE:

The kids begged me to add the mailbox, which I have now added.  It looks pretty cute and they are having a blast "sending" letters to each other.  The double bracket detail happened by happy accident.  I accidentally bought a too small bracket initially which is why I couldn't install the mailbox on Christmas Eve.  Then, once I bought the bigger bracket, I felt like you couldn't really see it so I added the smaller one on top.  We don't all agree on if it should be there but I think it looks nice and allows you to see more contrast and detail, so I'm going to keep it:

Only took me a year to get around to building the dutch door for the playhouse.  My 7 year old begged me all year to build it, so I finally got around to it while I was building the doors for our master closet and installed it for his 8th birthday.  The kids are thrilled!

Deck Rebuilds

We have three large decks in our backyard.  The first is a covered deck off the back side of the house and is our outdoor living- and dining-space.  The second is down one level from the first and is where we do our outdoor entertaining.  The third is under our willow tree and where we like to lounge while the kids play in the backyard.  All three were in pretty rough shape and needed a little (alot) of tlc.  The two uncovered decks were both rotting out and the one where we entertain was really not efficiently designed.  We were planning to just replace the decking on all the decks with a composite decking but the two uncovered ones were so rotted out that we had to rebuild their framing as well.  These were big projects so I enlisted the help of my AWESOME handyman, Jeremy Snyder, who is a neighbor and friend and just happens to be as anal about detail as I am, so I trust him.  I designed the decks and then we built them together.  We have been waiting for over three months for the fascia to arrive.  It still has not, so the decks aren't actually done, but I thought I would take some pictures to post anyway, as we are now using the decks.

 

Covered deck off the house:  the  deck boards on this deck were still in decent shape so we just re-stained them to match the new composite on the lower decks and replaced the railing with new black aluminum railing that we installed on the lower decks.

COVERED DECK BEFORE

COVERED DECK AFTER

 

 

 

The lower deck off the Upper Covered deck was originally split level, with neither lever quite big enough to be functional.  The stairs were in such bad shape that we were terrified someone would fall through them.  Both staircases ended in the corner, making the corner unusable space, and there was no natural way to walk onto the deck from the concrete slope on the side of the house.  We rebuilt the entire deck, made it a single level for more usable space, added winders to both stair cases so we could utilize the corner space, added built-in benches and planters in the corner (we still need to plant a tree in the large planter), and added another stair run along the slope of the concrete to make access to the deck and garage from the side of the house more convenient and comfortable.  We also added plumbing (access from a nearby hose bib, and a french drain running out under a nearby planter) and electrical under the deck so that we can add an outdoor kitchen next year where we have these temporary folding tables set up currently.

LOWER DECK BEFORE

 

LOWER DECK AFTER

We got the deck planters planted!  Getting going on the outdoor deck kitchen now.

 

The deck below the willow was so rotten that the main support beam was completely split and the whole deck was sagging.  As with the other deck, we are still awaiting the fascia to arrive so we can finish it, but we are enjoying having a safe place to enjoy on nice summer days.

DECK BELOW WILLOW BEFORE

DECK BELOW WILLOW AFTER

 

 

We have some leftover decking so we are using it for various odd projects around the yard.  We added a doorstep to the new sports shed (still waiting on fascia to arrive to finish off the edges), a potting bench to the garden shed (still waiting on fascia to finish the edges and add some details), and a boardwalk between the two main areas of the yard, where there used to just be some awkward paving stones.

All in all, it's been a VERY busy summer, working on the yard, but hopefully this will all last for decades to come.  Can't wait to get the new outdoor kitchen in and really start living outdoors!

We added a secret hidden deck next to the potting bench.  It wraps around both the ironwood tree and the juniper tree that are in that little cove area. These aren't the best pictures, as we didn't take time to clean up or get angles that really capture the atmosphere of this "secret hide-out," but here are a few for your viewing pleasure anyway:

Here are some of the design drawings I did: