Creatrope

Note: The safe building, engineering and use of the following project is entirely your responsibility. The description below is how I built it and may not be appropriate for your home layout or intended audience. The guidelines for use and parental supervision are identical to what they would be on a backyard or outdoor playground. It’s not inherently safer just because it’s indoors.

The Indoor Playhouse makes use of wasted space in a room that has a box shaped intrusion due to corridor below.

When I saw this, it seemed like a natural place for a playhouse. Rather than force a theme on the kids, I painted the walls with chalkboard paint so they can redecorate it into a castle, a spaceship, or whatever they want. Similarly, the holes and doorways are ‘generic’ and do not force a theme.

The walls of the structure are masonite painted with a chalkboard paint, inside and out. The chalkboard paint is not a particularly attractive shade, but the rest can be painted with bright colors. Plywood would have been a little stronger in retrospect, but we’ve not had any problems.

A vertical post at each corner, including the one near the slide is secured both to the elevated section (the base) and the ceiling. All for edges of edge piece of masonite is reinforced with 1″x1″ wood. It’s not ’structural’, but it’s enough to withstand some roughhousing by the kids.

The doorways and windows were roughed in a pencil and cut out with a jigsaw freehand. I used some lightweight hinges to attach the door and thought a bit about the swing direction (they swing outward and against the walls).

I was careful when I cut out the doors and windows not to damage them bu starting the cutting carelessly, so I could use them make the doors and window portal covers. I ended up not using the window portal covers, but the doors worked out well. An extra hole in the door let the kids keep an eye out for ‘intruders’. The doors needed some tweaking on the base to assure they cleared the ladder and slide properly.

The Indoor Playhouse

The slide is a standard plastic playground slide. It is elevated at the back to the right height with 2×4 studs, again screwed securely into the wall studs. The top of the the slide is secured to the top of the 2×4s. If your flooring allows it, I suggest attaching the base of the slide as well right through the carpet. Leaving the base of slide unattached allows the front to be lifted for vacuuming, which is handy, so you need to decide which is best for you.

A playground ladder would work here, but this ladder is homemade. It constructed from 2×4s, cut to the right height. A series of heavy dowels forms the rungs. The holes for the rungs were drilled out of the 2×4 studs about half-way into each stud (not all the way through), then glued in. Two small thin nails through the outside of the 2×4s into the dowel help reduce rotation of the dowel further. The dowels form nice strong handholds, but they need to be secure or they will rotate in the hole. The width of the ladder was such that I could drill it into the studs behind the drywall.

I deliberately left about a foot in front of the ladder entryway for a safety ledge, where they could sit before entering the playhouse.

Unfortunately, I was not very careful when painting and it would have come out a lot nicer if I’d painted the pieces and the put them on. You’d think that a decade worth of building models would have taught me that…

The inside changes a lot over time. There is a interesting rotatable cover for the overhead light (which is reduced to a compact fluorescent to reduce height and the chance the kids will burn themselves by touching it). There are three holes in it, and each hole is covered with colored gels that allows them to change the interior lighting of the playhouse [picture forthcoming]. They bring blankets, pillows, up there etc.

Further improvements include shelving underneath the slide and repainting!

In keeping with the theme of this blog, this project has requires virtually no upkeep. If you don’t make clutter, there’s nothing to declutter…

If you liked this project, you’d probably also like the ceiling mounted gym and climbing wall