The 15th Annual ORIX Parade of Playhouses event is about to actually start and the Bug Playhouse I designed was completed on time and delivered to the event without complication or drama. I know that I talk about this event at length but it only comes round once a year so thanks for indulging me. I’ve already published the post on the design, the construction documents, and the specimen jars that will go inside. If you have been around for all those posts, I think it’s interesting to see how close the envisioned product i s to the actual completed product. Sound the trumpets – here it is:
I’m pretty happy with it and I am glad that decided to flare the sides – the form is substantially more appealing with this shape than if the sides had been straight. Is it more “bug-like”? I’m going to say yes.
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These things tend to get built quickly and come together fast. I am going to include a lot of photos here so next year I can refer people to this post when they have questions about how these get built.
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A look at the interior framing – to get the flare on the sides, we just used a 2×6 stud and cut it to shape.
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All the framing and roof deck are on at this point – the form is coming together and at this point I can tell if I got the scale correct. Despite the fact that these playhouses are not very big, I don’t want them to look small, so I spend a lot of time considering the spacing and scale of the pieces that are used to build the playhouse.
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A look at the interior – the walls are lined with homasote (one of my favorite materials). It’s a 3/4″ thick recycled paper panel product and is really inexpensive. I like the way it looks and by using it as my wall sheathing, the entire interior has now become a makeshift tack board. You might notice that there is a counter top hanging off the rear wall – make a note of it because something happens to it later.
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This is a look at the rafters that hold up the roof. I used 1×4’s because I like the scale and by ganging them together, I get the support I need while adding some visual interest to the ceiling. I also tapered the ends to the rafters to visually lighten the way they look from the outside.
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Looking up at the rafters …
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The cedar shingles finally made it onto the playhouse. This view also gives you a nice look at the profile of the playhouse. The roof also has an angle to the eaves that matches the angle of the walls. I did this for no other reason than to try and accentuate the non-rectangular form. Many of these playhouses are boxes and I was trying to avoid that.
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We are on day 32 of triple digit heat here in Texas so working outside all day is tough. I think that guy was just taking a 5 second break but it looks like he’s about to lose it into that bucket. Or was this right after I showed up with some last minute revisions?…
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Painters showed up, patched holes, caulked joints – all that good stuff and put down a primer coat. I thought this neutral color was interesting, but I had something with a little more pop in mind.
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This is the final color scheme – mostly neutral with the gun metal gray body and natural cedar shakes but a little beetle green for the framing.
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This picture is a little out of sequence but there’s a reason. just a few days before this playhouse was supposed to be delivered, I ran by the site with my daughter Kate. She was examining the interior and this is what happened:
Kate: “I love it but you know what you should have done? I have a great idea..”
Dad: “I like great ideas, lay it on me.”
Kate: “You should cut holes in this top with a box underneath, then put see thru lids in here so you could put the bugs that you’ve caught in there with some sticks and leaves and dirt….”
Dad: (thinking this thing needs to get finished but…) “You know, that actually is a great idea, I need to make that happen”
So I called one of the best contractors in Dallas – Barry Buford from Buford Homes (and the guy building my playhouse) and ran the idea past him. His response?
Barry: “That is a good idea, we need to make that happen.”
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Viola! Swung by the job site on my way home and everything was done.
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When I told my daughter that her table top idea actually got built, you can only imagine how happy she was. Maybe this year she might actually want to win the playhouse I designed. (fingers crossed)
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A look at the display shelves embedded into the wall – perfect for storing specimen jars!
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A look back at the front door, you can see that the homasote overs all the interior walls.
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This is a close-up look at how the hardware cloth (screen) was installed. Extremely direct and straight-forward – although I have to admit that this method of installing the screen was the idea of the contractor. My idea required the creation of individual screen frames for each opening – completely unnecessary.
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Moving the playhouse from where it was built to the parking lot outside NorthPark Mall is handled differently by every contractor who builds one. Since I keep mine light, and the contractor builds it only a few miles away, he can take residential streets the entire way so he just sticks it on the back of a flat bed trailer and the drive like 15mph the whole way.
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NorthPark Mall is owned by the Nasher Family (maybe you’ve heard of the Nasher Sculpture Center designed by Renzo Piano, home to one of the greatest collections of modern and contemporary sculpture in the world?) These are the same guys that move priceless works of art around so despite the every-man looking nature of this process, these guys know what they’re doing (so I was only slightly nervous seeing forklift driver tilt my playhouse on edge…)
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There aren’t to many images yet that convey the scale of this little playhouse so I included these few at the end for scale reference.
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I know that at the time of writing this post, my Bug House has been moved into the mall. That means I will shortly arrive on site and finish loading up the stuff that goes inside – the specimen jars, a telescope, and the coolest of all … a whole load of HexBugs – mini robotic creatures courtesy of a client of ours (the owner of the company and the guy who designed them in the first place). What kid isn’t going to see that and try and get their parents to buy some raffle tickets? After all, this is a charity event and a damn good cause. If you want to see some of the other designs and maybe buy some raffle tickets for yourself, visit the Dallas CASA website.
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