Kids love to mimic everything we do and are excited about growing up. That’s why they love to play house! With a play kitchen, everything is just the right size for them to reach, and they can be like mommy without being in any danger.
A plastic kitchen set is great, but if you want to encourage hours of creativity and fun, consider going one step further and building an outdoor play house!
Every Kid Wants a Club House
Virtually every kid wants to have a tree house or a secret club house. It’s often just not practical to build one, especially if you lack the necessary tree!
But a play house can exist in any size yard and in any climate, making it the perfect solution. You can also get a jumpstart on the building process by buying a prefabricated play house or simply purchasing a small shed and outfitting it with all the kid-sized essentials. You can also hire a construction team for this quick and easy job, or to help you prepare the building site if your yard is not conveniently flat. For example, Tex Con Construction provides Houston dirt work services for projects big and small.
However, depending on how old your children are, the building process itself can be a great learning opportunity. Of course, you’ll want to be in charge of all the equipment, but kids can help you mark where you’ll cut the boards, hold pieces of wood for you as you nail them in, and even help pound in a few nails once you get them started. Painting the play house is another fun step that kids love to help with.
You can also have fun with the landscaping around the play house. Maybe a little hammock or swing can be set up outside.
How Extravagant Do You Want This Play House to Be?
As you plan your child’s play house, the first thing to keep in mind is that you should be able to go inside it too. Your child will love welcoming you to her house for lunch, so make sure you can comfortably sit inside!
To help the roof be at the proper height for you without making the house seem too big for your kiddo, you can add a loft area. This is essentially just a bunk bed without the bottom bunk!
What else should you include? A kitchen set is usually what kids love to play with the most when they are in their house. They see you in the kitchen making food, cleaning up or just enjoying a cup of coffee, and they want to be like you. A pint-sized table and chairs completes the house quite nicely. Perhaps a little chair and a bookshelf could complete the look.
But let’s be honest: a play house is really just for play. Your child doesn’t need a mini fridge there, nor does she need a working faucet or even a bathroom. If you want to go to the trouble of wiring electricity to the play house and outfitting it with real fixings only to have it be used according to your child’s whims, make it a proper-sized guest house so you can get plenty more use out of it!
This space becomes an exciting new world in which the kids get to pretend to be grown-ups. They’ll love to convene there with their friends or bring dolls inside to care for like their children. A play house is perfect for promoting a child’s growth and development. It makes a great hand-me-down for the grandkids, too!