Building an Indoor Playhouse for My Son

A few years ago, I designed and built a small indoor playhouse for my son, Malachi. It was an incredibly fun project I got to do alongside my dad as well as my friend, Britton. Today, I want to walk you through the design and construction process (with lots of pictures!).

In our family, Jill and I try to be intentional to create environments that nurture our kids’ creativity, imagination, reading abilities, and love for play. I say “try” because it’s really tempting to turn on the TV, sometimes! But in our household, we set a lot of boundaries around screens and direct the kids toward more hands-on activities and physical play. We’ve been really intrigued by the Montessori education model, especially in its hands-on learning, responsibility, self-directed activity, and collaborative play.

So that brings me to the playhouse.

Malachi is a climber. He’ll get on top of any structure he can. So we thought: let’s give Malachi something indoors that he can climb whenever he wants to. Something that encourages his imagination and some of those values I mentioned earlier. That’s how the idea of our playhouse began.

The initial sketch of the playhouse was made on my iPad with an app called Paper. I wanted to create something sturdy enough for family activities, like reading or drawing, without compromising on the aesthetic appeal for potential placement in a common area. I wanted it to look like a blank canvas for Malachi to fill with story and theming later on.

My design schematics I created for myself. There were a few modifications I made once I started to build. Tap on any of these images to enlarge.

The design was inspired by the simplicity of a child's drawing of a house, materialized into a square base with a triangle roof, extended into three dimensions. That’s what I wanted to convey- as though a child drew a house on a piece of paper and it suddenly leapt to life. I based the actual size of the playhouse on the Nugget kids' couch cushion, so that we could use that as a soft floor if we wanted to. Turns out, that didn’t really matter at all as Malachi prefers the plywood floor.

I wanted to build this project with my Dad. My dad is an engineer, a self-taught carpenter, and one of those guys who is sort-of an expert at everything. Undoubtedly, my love for building stuff comes from him and most of the skills and experience I have were cultivated by doing projects with him. I knew this would go so much more smoothly if I had his help and expertise, so I was incredibly appreciative he not only worked on the construction with me, but allowed me to use his workshop. There were a few problems I wanted his help to solve, especially in some of the joints between weird angles and in building a playhouse that would be incredibly strong. I love building stuff with my dad. We have a lot of good conversation while we work on something we both enjoy.

We built the frame out of pine (4x4s and 2x4s) and used poplar boards for the walls and roof. I wanted to use a hardwood for those components so that it would be resistant to the kind of surface nicks and scratches you’d expect from young kids. My friend, Britton (who is a legit, professional carpenter), not only helped me source the lumber but cut them, too. I routed all of the boards so that they fit together with a shiplap groove. It was my first time routing, actually, and Britton showed me the ropes and helped me get it right. I like a shiplap cut because it’s a simple, straight edge, it allows some height adjustment as you’re installing, and it completely blocks any light leak (important for our design with integrated lighting). I’m also a big fan of seeing the natural wood color, so I only sanded and sealed the playhouse with several coats of a clear Polyurethane (no stain or paint).

Lighting is always important to me and we designed this playhouse with a lighting plan from the jump. We used integrated LED lighting with Ikea's MYRVARV strips. Choosing the lighting strip was a tedious research project in itself. We chose the MYRVARV because it’s flexible, it has a great warm glow, and the LEDs and the diffuser are built together. We routed channels for the LED strip right into the front of the playhouse frame. I remember when we turned it on for the first time - it felt like we struck gold. It is just the right blend of minimalistic, modern, and organic design that we love. It creates an inviting, warm atmosphere, and the light is adjustable by Malachi through a wireless dimmer by the door.

It was important to me that I could sit in the playhouse with the kids and play pretend or read a book or whatever, and that meant it had to be strong. The floor is plywood supported by a 2x4 frame, mounted between the 4x4 front frame and the 2x4 studs in the wall on the back. It’s strong. Indeed, it's been tested by myself and three of my buddies piling in it without as much as a millimeter of movement!

For the rock wall, Britton used a CNC router to drill a precise grid of holes, allowing us to adjust the climbing difficulty level as Malachi grows. I found a set of hand holds on Amazon that matched our color palette and installed them in the holes. The rock wall was actually the easiest part of this project!

Conversely, the front netting was probably the hardest challenge. I knew the look I wanted, but achieving it was a puzzle. I ended up installing dozens of eye screws inside the front structure, so you can’t see them from the outside. I ran a rope through the eye screws all the way around the opening. Then I found a white safety net from Amazon (which determined the width of my design), and secured the net to the perimeter rope with hundreds of zip ties. I’m really happy with the result; it’s strong, but it looks very unique.

It took us about 5 hours to assemble initially, with disassembly and reassembly proving more efficient at around 2 hours.

Finally, to finish it off, we installed glow-in-the-dark stars on the inside and added Ikea spice rack shelves for books. The playhouse has since become a cherished space for Malachi and his sister. We’ve pretended to be pirates sailing the high seas, astronauts, superheroes in their headquarters, and tigers living in a cave (I don’t know if tigers live in caves, but we play that game A LOT). It’s an anchor in his room, a home-within-a-home that he has decorated (even for Christmas) and made his own. Often, you’ll find him reading some of his favorite books from the library or building a new lego set in his playhouse.

Our playhouse is more than a structure; it's an expression of our family’s value of thoughtful design and the joy of creating something from scratch, especially when it's for someone you love. For those inspired to undertake a similar project, I encourage you to embrace the challenges and the joys it brings. Remember, the essence of such a project lies not just in the physical construction but in the memories built and the imagination it fosters.

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