There are two things I distinctly remember wishing for when I was a kid- a ride on car and a sick fort that I could play in. Now that I’m a parent I get to do those things for my kids. Here is the journey of how I designed and built a playhouse called the “Nan-Texas”. I studied architecture in college because I wanted to design and build spaces to enjoy life in. Architecture School never panned out but I got the knowledge I needed to do stuff like this! Here is the process of the Nan-Texas, a custom playhouse I built for my daughters.

Design

Our house had a 6’X6’ cement slab in the NE corner of the property- I assume there was a shed on it at some point. The pre-existing slab saved me a lot of time- I probably wouldn’t have built this thing if the slab wasn’t there. I looked around for playhouse kits- there are a couple options and all are pretty expensive. Also, most kit playhouses are either dark brown, navy or lemon yellow plastic- those colors suck and would get too hot to play on in the summer. So I figured I’d design and build a good looking playhouse. I called my brother about 2 weeks before christmas and told him my plan- I wanted to build the frame on christmas eve in my neighbords yard then carry it over to my backyard and have it look like santa laid out a lot of materials and an instruction manual on how to build the thing. My brother, laughed and said good luck. So I cut santa out of the equation (i wanted credit for this thing anyway)- and told Nona on xmas day that I was going to build her a playhouse for christmas, construction started December 26th 2022.

My brother Enzo is a blacksmith, welder, fabricator, effects guy for movies, pyro-technician, and comedian- he had a couple weeks off work for the holidays and was able to help get the project off the ground. He gets credit for all the important things such as- making sure the building is level, true to square, and structurally sound. I had a great time watching him operate a combo square, and I learned a lot.

I also need to give HUGE thanks to my friend Trey for lending me his air compressor and mitre saw for a month and a half! This project was wildly over budget- but If I had to buy/or rent the tools needed to do the job it would have been easily an extra $2000. Another thanks to my neighbors for helping me lift this roof onto the structure and putting up with the noise during the holiday season. At one point I heard my backyard neighbors granddaughter start crying because the sound of the miter saw scared her.

Around this time I realized that the posts in the railing were not up to code- one of Trey’s kids stuck his whole body out of the railing. So I doubled the amount of posts. I wish I had supplied the paint for this house like a normal person- instead, every week i’d go to lowes to buy all “Satin Iris Blue” paint cans as they had. I probably ended up using 25 cans of paint.

SPRING! Finally the grass has turned green again and the oaktree’s leafs have grown out. I was particularly excited to see how the oak would shade the structure. My father in law and I planted that tree about 4 years ago after Nona was born. It has tripled in size since we planted it.