Our little house on the prairie

Ok so it's not really a prairie...more like a little house in the mountainous desert. I first saw the plans HERE and fell in love with the idea of a fun outdoor playplace. We don't have any parks closer than 10 minutes from here and the kids need something else to do OUTSIDE! :) So this is part of our solution. Since it was/is a big job we enlisted Mark's parents (who wanted to come down for a visit anyways and apparently like to be busy doing stuff around our place while they're here...) who built the house they live in now. We figured they'd have some know-how. And they did. So here's a little of what we did.

I forgot to take a complete before picture, one of the empty space, but this is still quite before. The playhouse will sit on top of the deck which is 4ft off the ground. Underneath will be a sandbox.

Here are the 2 main worker bees. Margie and I were the lovely assistants.

And because this is such a cool picture I had to include it.

And this darling one also. She had been running her dolls head through the sprinkler so she could fix her hair.

Kale wanted to really help so he and Mark put some screws in. He eventually got a bit tired of that so he followed Doug around. Doug would drill a hole, Kale filled it with a screw and Mark screwed it in. A good team actually.

Then the she worker bees came in and primed and painted the wood. Margie is on the ground and our friend Ashley (who was hanging out with us for the day) helped too.

Kale, Margie and I

We found an unopened can of bright blue paint so we decided to paint the trim that color. We may eventually need to paint the white part of the house but for now I think it's pretty cute.
Doug, Margie and I assembled the house while Mark was at work on Wednesday. Then Mark came home from work and helped put part of the roof on.

Here's the peanut gallery celebrating Margie's birthday with popsicles and watching the guys work.

This is from Kale's perspective. Thought it was a neat angle.

For now it's just a dirt box...

We need to complete the roof - we have a metal roof to put on - as well as complete the railing, put sand in, add on a swing set - that may be next year - and finish painting. We have a ways to go but it's coming along!