This weekend Dad and Curt came over to help me turn my r0ugh sketches of an indoor child's
playloft into reality. Its a work in progress, and several design elements have changed in the process of construction.
Aeva was excited about helping out as well. As you can see from the above picture, she's holding a wrench in the hands, ready and eager to jump right on in. I have yet to document all the work done to date, but this will catch you up on the major stuff. Don't worry, you will hopefully see a finished product by next weekend.
We had an excellent cheer squad keeping up motivated in our chilly work. The temps last weekend were in the 30s.
Good thing Dad is retired now. I have lots of projects in which to enlist him.
Here's the large platform. This thing is STURDY.
Once finished, there will be a wooden suspension bridge connecting these two platforms. I actually put up most of that today.
Last of all, the platforms will be sanded, varnished, padded and carpeted, and there will be an assortment of doodads like a ship's wheel etc. mounted to the rails. Oh yes--don't forget the 10-foot wrap around slide I bought for the main platform. That will be the final and crowning feature of the playhouse. All of this is a bit bigger than it looked on paper, but we have been cleaning out of
garage over the course of several months in anticipation of its conversion to a playroom. Add a little light, heat, and a killer setup like this one and voila--kiddie paradise all winter long.
Here it is. This is the almost-finished loft. Since last posting I have put down carpet and underpadding, assembled the slide, and completed the suspension bridge. We have also started to put up some decorations like suspending chinese paper lanterns and gold starts from the ceiling, as well as the placement of door bead at the entrance of exit of the first platform.
Here's a shot form a differenct angle. You probably can't tell from this small picuture how I build the bridge, but it ended up being quite the headache. No matter its finished now. Not only can i disconnect the bridge to lower my kyaks from the roof, but I can adjust the tension on all teh ropes to keep the bridge tight and minimize excessive swinging. I also had to place some handles at either end of the bridge since Aeva is still a little timid about crossing by herself.
The best part, of course, is the slide. I can personally vouche and tell you that its not only sturdy enought to support a grown man but its also quite fast! The last big task to do will be completing all the sanding. 
