Because a very special playhouse deserves extra special details…and because little boys love getting things in the mail (think of Ralphie in “A Christmas Story” with his Little Orphan Annie secret decoder ring!)  I came up with this cute mailbox idea from one I saw for sale online for around $150:  using a rather unimpressive craft-size toy mailbox, some scrap pieces of wood, a jigsaw, sander and paint, I made this Westie doggie mailbox this afternoon for the playhouse (in honor of my son’s best playmate – our Westie, Oliver).

Here’s my mini version…

And this was the online inspiration that gave me the idea:

I think we did a pretty good job if I do say so myself!  We made it a little more gender-neutral with the color scheme and the the overall décor (although I admit that the flowers give it a feminine touch, but hey…a mom’s gotta have some fun, right?!) 

Let me preface this by saying that my husband is not a professional contractor or carpenter, and we’re far from wealthy!  We built this ourselves using free scrap wood, discount materials from surplus home builder centers, lots of careful planning and shopping on ebay, craigslist, etc…and lots of ingenuity, creativity, thought, and love!  That’s not to say that it was cheap to build, but that we took great pains to keep costs down and stay within our budget.

For inquiring minds, we built this for around the same cost as one of those fancy, schmancy wooden backyard playsets/swingsets that you see everywhere! At least with the playhouse, he can play in it all year long – including rainy & snowy days! (which we get a lot of in PA!)

It took my husband four months to build it!  That’s working on it nearly every evening/weekend for four grueling months!  Nearly every part of this was custom-made by my husband or myself.  He’s extremely gifted when it comes to anything mechanically-inclined and very creative. 

I’ve been adding little touches and taking photos for weeks, but I’d say that for the most part, it’s as done as it’s going to be.  I’m so happy with how it turned out!  And I’m so very PROUD of my husband for building this – without any plans! 

So I hope you sit back and enjoy the grand tour 🙂

His front porch decked out for fall with our garden-grown pumpkins!  We couldn’t find a front door of the right proportion, so my husband made this one.

Of course any true house has to have an address marker, right?  So I had one made just for his…

Here’s the ladder that my husband built to reach the loft to the outside deck.

Here’s the garage side…my husband was insistent on his son having his own garage!

What’s a garage without a little workbench?  My husband put this one together with scrap wood and an inexpensive peg board where I could hang our son’s play tools.

Our son made the little wooden tool caddy at a Home Depot workshop for kids!  That’s where he got the apron, too!

And my husband went to town on the others covering them in car emblems, road signs and garage memorabilia…you know, guy stuff 🙂

Below is a view of the back of the house so you can see the palladium window and the deck and patio.  Next year we plan to add a slide to the back of the deck so he can slide down to the yard.

Here’s a side view of the house.  The loft door handle is a brass lizard in keeping with boys’ fascination with creepy crawlies…and the deck holds one of his little adirondack chairs.  The patio holds his basketball hoop, his sandbox and another chair for lounging and enjoying a popsicle.

I did all of the landscaping around the front and made a little flagstone pathway to the front door.