Last Friday I posted about turning my first pen on a lathe, this week I'm discussing my other recent project, a playhouse for my two daughters. Hopefully by the time you see this the paint job will look a little more complete. It's based loosely on a plan I found in a magazine. It's 4'x6', and for scale the door is 18"x46", built out of 3/4" construction grade plywood. The plan I started with had no floor and sat on the ground, but I wanted something a little nicer and easy to move, so I build a matching platform with casters out of 2x6's and plywood, then mounted the house on it. Real shingles on top, though it will be interesting to see how they hold up as I stapled them on rather than nailing, the nails were poking through the rough and could have been a hazard. The floor ended up being just a little high for a first step, so the platform you see is the offcut from the window in the 2nd photo with some 2x4 strips underneath - good to use the scraps for something! It was a good 2 days worth of work, and still some painting to go.

The nice part about projects like these is perfection doesn't matter and it's a gift, though whether it will be more them that ultimately enjoys it more will be a tough call.

We spend a lot of time with ideas and bytes, good to make something with our hands once in a while. Go build something!