Building a Playhouse - How to Design a Playhouse for Your Kids

Before you can build a theater for your children, you obviously need to plan. Without a plan you will stumble along, making random cuts and wasting time and money on improperly cutting wood. But how and where do you get the design and plan?

Let's face it, most of us are just ordinary men or girls without a degree in architecture, right? So, how do we design and create a theater?

One way to get creative juices flowing is to study the role of other toys. Whether online or in person, you can take a look at as many home designs as possible and study them. If you are lucky enough to see you personally, take a measuring tape with you and measure your height and width physically. Get a sense of how much space you want and where you want.

As a general good rule, the average playing area should be about 50-100 square feet in floor area. Walls should not be more than 6 inches long, as most children are 4 to 4-1 feet in length.

If you are a novice woodworker, keep the design simple. A rectangle or a simple rectangle is the safest bet. Do not try to imagine everything with a neat design. You may get involved in the middle of the road and surrender. It is best to keep it simple and complete.

Design your theater with a gable roof. The gable roof is the easiest to build and still looks good on a simple structure. The roof degree or angle must be from 1 to 2. In other words for each 12 "height must be 6". This makes it easy to figure the height of the ridge.

For siding, use T-111 plywood horizontally. This gives the impression of lap bias, but it is faster and cheaper. When using this method, keep your wall length 8 inches or less, because the plywood siding comes with a standard length.

Build a front door of thick plywood or 1 x 6 panels. You can get some basic belt hinges from the hardware store to let it swing. If you design 6 'long walls, make the door 5' or 5'6 "tall.

Do not try to use the normal door handle for the building door. It is made for a normal door that is thicker than the door you will build. Just use a bolt or tap wasp. Or you can choose not to have a handle at all!

Finally, design your dwelling with some windows. Make it about 18 "square as this will look as much as a proportion to the rest of the theater.

So you need to check out other playhouses and take notes. Draw your thoughts on some blank sheets. I love using graph paper with 1/4 boxes. "You can spend time tweaking your design, once you get the way you want, you're ready to start building!