After obsessing over the last two weeks about how to build a patio cover, A & I decided that that was just a distraction, and that it was time to BUILD THE PLAYHOUSE.
Now, I played with the 3-d modeling software extensively. It must have been, I don't know, 15, 30 minutes. Now, when that's competing with sleep, that's a helluva lot of time. But mostly, over the course of the last few months, I've been sketching - poorly, but extensively. I've also been staring at the Stewart Strong Tie section of the Home Depot, cluelessly, but extensively. Going into this morning, I had only the vaguest idea of what I needed, and what I needed to do to turn a plastic rock wall, and a buttload of ideas into a functional playhouse.
Oh yeah, the plastic rock wall. About a month ago, it was raining like a mother, so I turned to A, and said "let's go walk around at Home Depot." Packed up the rascals, and we went to waste time. Now, I was actually looking at prices for totally unrelated items, but decided to stop by the playhouse section and help A get a crystal clear picture of the murky image in my mind of how this playhouse was going to come to be. While we were looking, I noticed that the $160 rock wall thingy that we were not planning on installing, primarily because of cost, was marked down to $30!!! Holy crap. We ran home, had lunch, put the boys down for nap, and I ran back, with a gift card, and bought that sucker. This was, of course, after it rang up $160, and I had to walk back and show the dude what the tag said. So, VICTORY!
So now the rock wall (called a Swing & Slide Lookout Mountain, if you want to Google it) sat in the garage while we were on vacation, for weeks and weeks and weeks, until today. Well, actually it didn't really move today. We didn't get that far. However, we got THIS FAR:
Of course, I choose to start this amidst the coming of a tropical wave. Now, to be clear, I live 60+ miles from the coast, and I don't actually know if any wave is affiliated with a tropical wave, but apparently it brings a shitload of rain. Like the weather guy says "it will be raining as far out as we can see," sort of shitload So some of this was done in fairly dry weather, some in a drizzle, some in a light sprinkle, and some after the fucking monsoon that overtook the area, which means that I was using an electric drill while basically kneeling in a puddle. Mom would not approve.
I started by framing up two opposite walls using, in part the Simpson Strong Ties that you can see in the picture at mid wall. Those hold what is going to be the second floor/ slide & climbing platform. Then I connected those walls, using the ties and a 2x4. Creating a 4 wall structure. Wow. I framed up the floor, as you can see, and I started to put additional 2x4s around the bottom, to get ready for a floor.
Crap.
The 2x4s - the last freaking thing I did - totally jacked up my mojo.
What I actually needed to do was use a 2x6 to frame up where the climbing "stairs" are going to go.
After N & Z got to bed, I got back outside, plugged everything up, sat down in a puddle, and started making magic. At the end of the day, I had the skeleton of a skeleton of a playhouse to be proud of. But it's more than I had this morning.
So what now?
Well, you see that frame on the right side, that has nothing attached to it. That's the bottom of the stairs. There will soon be 3 stairs there. Each measuring 24 inches across, 25 inches deep, and 16 inches tall. That should be tall enough to be fun for both boys, but a little challenging for my 16 month old. And no, the inches tall is not in tribute to him. It's in tribute to 48/3=16. It does equal 16, right?
So, anyway, I have to build the frames for those steps. 4x4 posts, of 16 inches high, 23 inches high, and 48 inches high separated by 25 inches, and for any wisdom beyond that, I'm probably going to have to go stare at that Simpson Strong Tie aisle again.
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