How to Build an Outside Playhouse
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Even this plastered adobe gate and fence have a rock and cement block base/foundation.adobe church image by John Sfondilias from Fotolia.com
Place your wall foundation stones or blocks on top of the level ground at the selected location of the play fort. No mortar is necessary if your blocks are flat, like recycled cement, and you also do not live in a sensitive earthquake zone. Lay the foundation blocks tightly together like a jigsaw puzzle by staggering and overlapping the end connections of each rock or block. This is called a stem wall. Make the wall about 1 foot high. Measure and leave an opening where the entry door will be. - 2
Not much clay is needed to bring a clay-light soil into a bondable condition. Small amounts per batch of simple potters clay will do.Contours in Clay image by John Sfondilias from Fotolia.com
Spread the mixing tarp on the ground and load two or three buckets of earth into the middle. Test your soil for clay and sand contents before starting by shaking a cup of dirt in a mason jar filled with water left to settle. Examine the water to check for sand collected in the bottom and clay-formed clouds floating in the water that take a long time to settle. These two signs indicate clay and sand in needed amounts. If there is no sand in the bottom of the jar, or no long-hanging clouds formed in the water, you may need to add these ingredients. - 3
Purely earth/clay castle walls from an ancient culture where defending archers hid behind turrets.remparts de la m??dina image by MONIQUE POUZET from Fotolia.com
Add what is found to be lacking slowly, along with water and straw, while having the kids help by stomping, twisting, mixing with their feet. Pull the tarp from the corners toward the middle and continue to mix and pull until your earth mix looks and feels like bread dough or a folded bean burrito -- thoroughly wet, but sticky/clay-like and ready to form with the hands. Mixing earth, sand and clay with water makes a bond between the clay and the sand. Load this mix onto your rock or stem-wall. Shape this mass so the earth hangs slightly over the rocks, making it so no water will slip under your earth wall. - 4
adobe walls are thick, windows usually on the inside of the wall. Pise is a flattening earth-plaster and wall method.une tourelle en pis?? image by MONIQUE POUZET from Fotolia.com
Keep loading the earth mix until your walls rise a foot or so above the opening for your door. Shape the earth up the sides of any window openings. Trim and smooth your earth walls as you go. Work the earth with your hands and fingers, and use a stick or tool to push the layers of earth together/into each other when you add new loads. - 5
Embedding beams to service earth and adobe house roofs has been common for centuries.Adobe building image by Jeffrey Banke from Fotolia.com
Embed any beams and rafters securely into the top of your fort walls. Place them to receive your roofing plywood. Nail these sheets down directly on top of them. Make sure your plywood framing extends a full 2 feet out over all of your walls. Shape the edges to please the eye. Glue a big sheet of pond liner down on the plywood as a corner-cutting, labor and time saving water-repelling roof membrane. Reinforce with roofing nails, then give the nails a quick, complete dab of silicone seal. - 6
Old earth cabin walls built around plain, peeled timber. Use a board to help smooth walls.Door to original pioneer cabin built of adobe and wood image by John Sfondilias from Fotolia.com
Pay special attention in the design stage if the kids are attached to the turret-fort look. Perhaps only turrets and no roof is needed for this play structure to be inspiring. If this is the case, spend extra time coating the whole earth structure with an oil and melted wax mix, brushed on in many layers, to water and weather-proof the playhouse. Perhaps no doors or windows are desired for this play structure. If so, no framing for doors or windows are needed.
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