DIY Custom Swingset Play House

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The imagination that our two year old brings to every day normalcy is so much fun. His current obsessions are cooking in his “Kitchen” and playing in his Fort (details on that can be found Here!) But the one thing he doesn’t have is a “Play House” with doors he can open and shut.

Instead of building an entire structure my husband would have to mow around in the center of our yard, we opted to repurpose the space under the slide on our Swing Set.

This project was one of those deals where I started with the idea of “Oh, I’ll build and hang one little gate” and ended up with two gates, a counter and a paver walkway, so, the designs I originally drew up don’t line up with the finished product, but, I’m thrilled with the outcome.

To build the gate(s), I measured out the space between the two posts and built a frame to fit in between. The swingset is probably about 15 years old and not exactly square, so, I knew I’d have to sand down parts of the door to make it fit in the end.

I used my handy dandy belt clamp to hold the frame together and keep it square while I cut boards to screw down on the back. I wasn’t too concerned with making the doors pretty with mitered corners or hidden pocket screws, but, I wanted the door to have some weight.

I cut boards to be a little shorter than the frame and figured I could fit 6 across the width to fill it in without going out past the edges. I screwed straight down into the back of the frame through the boards to hold it all together. A little light sanding to knock out any major splinter hazards and the first gate was ready to hang!

I love the way these big black hinges and door handles look against the red of the play house!

For the “Counter” window, I cut a 6″ board to fit the length of the opening in the play space. I happened to have a few of shelf brackets (how cute are THESE?!) and mounted them upside down to create a floating counter across his “window.”

I added one last board at the last minute to create a bit more of a defined space and then the “Construction” of the play house was complete!

We had painted the swingset at the beginning of the summer, and had just enough leftover to paint the two gates, the window counter and the additional “wall” board. The last step was to toss down a few pavers that were left over from our Garden Patio. This way, we don’t have to keep weed eating this space every weekend.

I have a feeling the “Club House” will become our new favorite place to hang out and decorate. I’m already excited thinking of the ways we can spruce it up!