I am so excited!  Something I have always wanted to do, but never thought I could do, I finally decided to try today.    

I'm going to be building a playhouse for the kids!   

It's not going to be a big one or elaborate by any means, but it will be sufficient for what I'm looking for.  Maybe one day, if I get the knack of it, I can build a bigger and better one. 

There has been a book laying around the house here for years...it used to belong to my in-laws. It's called, "Housebuilding for Children".    I had read the book many times over the last several years, wishing I could make one (and wishing I could get the kids involved, like the kids on the cover!), but always just thought that it was something James would have to do.   After all, I've never done anything like that, and I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to working with wood.  And he already has a million projects to do already, so I know the kids will be grown and out of the house before he is able to do something. lol

I finally got motivated to go ahead and just take the plunge and TRY.   And this is how I usually end up being able to do anything, is just by actually DOING it.   

I bought the materials listed in the book...all except the homosote, which I have decided to substitute with plywood, which is supposed to be much sturdier than homosote.    My mom has some plywood at her house that she doesn't need and will be giving me, so I guess I won't have to pay for any of that.   With the plywood included, all the materials I would have needed would have totaled about 60.00...which isn't bad for a playhouse. But, I got even luckier, because of not having to buy the plywood. 

All of the materials that I bought cost me less than $30.00, and that may be all I have to end up paying for the playhouse total! (hey, that's how much I paid for my wedding dress!)    Of course, I may want to paint it and stuff like that, but for the actual structure, this may be all it costs. That's a lot more affordable than the playhouses that you'll find anywhere else, right?  New playhouses are ridiculously expensive, which is one reason I wanted to build one for myself so badly.   I had the Lowes people cut up all the boards to the exact measurements I needed so I wouldn't have to use the saw at all.  Nice, huh?

The instructions in the book were SO simple...but I guess that's to be expected since it's targeted towards teaching children!  That's the type of book for me...lay it out simple, simple, simple!   

I just want to show you what I was able to do within about 30 minutes this afternoon... I need to do three more of these. This turned out to be so much simpler than I had imagined it would be!    I'm very proud of this.



This is what the house should look like when it's internal structure is about finished (from the front cover of the book):



See, if kids can do it, I should be able to too.

I'll be posting more pictures as the house comes along!