Oliver's Blog

Finally, all finished and bolted down. And yes, it has been tested by Poppy. I know it’s not her birthday yet but I challenge anyone to stop an almost-three-year-old from climbing up on to a new playhouse with a slide on especially when it’s in her own back garden. We’ve also managed to go shopping today too, all four of us and had something to eat out while we were there. We didn’t buy much while we were there, just some shoes for Poppy. I tried on some of those new Nike Free trainers that are supposed to feel almost like you are running barefoot. They feel pretty good but not barefoot by any means! Anyway, here’s a couple of photos from the playhouse test phase of the project:

Okay so I discovered that only the roof was ship-lap panels, the rest of the body was just normal sawn and sanded panels. There are lots of gaps between the panels – they don’t fit snugly together like a shed would, so it’s much less weather proofed than a normal outdoor building would be. Not that that should be a problem cuz I would hope no-one has to sleep in it, and nothing should ever be left in it over night. I have managed to get as far as starting to fit the roof. The only reason I stopped this evening at that stage was because my electric screwdriver ran out of juice and there’s no way I’m going to do this manually (yes, far too lazy and I still have blisters from painting the decking). Just need to finish off the roof tomorrow, fit the slide, then bolt the whole thing down to the ground and I’m finished.

And on another note, I think we need to dust the conservatory. Mr Spider, as seen in the photo below is ma-hooo-sive so I decided I would post a portrait of him here for my mom to see as she loves this sort of thing so much.

Well the playhouse arrived yesterday. It is completely flat-packed and even the house part itself is made of ship-lapped panels which need putting together from scratch. So far this morning I have managed to build the base – the house part looks a lot more complicated. I have also managed to stain the decking… Ronseal Decking Stain, does exactly what it says on the tin. Or tub. It came with a sponge applicator on a stick and went on really easy in two coats. The first coat last night took 1:15, the second coat I did this morning and it only took 45 minutes.

To celebrate Poppy’s 3rd birthday I decided it would be nice to get her something that I would really have liked when I was her age: a playhouse on stilts. The idea is that anyone who would normally buy her a present can instead contribute to the playhouse, which as well as getting her a present she is guaranteed to like will also save us from having to buy more storage boxes to keep the ever growing numbers of toys which in all honesty only get used occasionally – she picks something she likes and uses that for a couple of weeks before it is confined back to a box and swapped for another toy of choice. So, the playhouse on order is the TP Forest Lodge Wooden Playhouse which includes a raised platform and small house area, plus a nice big slide to get down quickly. So if anyone who normally buys a present for Poppy’s birthday would instead like to contribute towards this then please get in contact – definitely don’t feel you need to contribute more than you would usually spend on a present, if that.. or indeed any at all! Oh yes, and she doesn’t know what she is getting for her birthday, it’s a surprise so don’t tell her. She can’t read properly yet so I think I’m safe in writing this blog entry.

The first baby gadget – The Motorola BM500 Video Monitor. The most important feature of this baby monitor is that it is digital and wifi friendly. It runs in the 2.4Ghz range but limits itself to a channel of the same bandwidth as a standard wifi channel. The fact it is digital means that video can be easily encrypted making it difficult for other local baby monitors, video senders, or wireless security systems to ‘hack’ in and view the signal. It has night-vision infra red LEDs, a night-light built in, temperature monitor, can play lullabies remotely from the camera in Joseph’s room, and lets us talk back to him to tell him to shut up. Oh yes, and it has a 3.5″ colour LCD screen set in a parent monitor that looks like something taken from the new Star Trek film set. It works pretty well so far, especially the VOX mode which keeps the monitor and speaker off until it detects sound in the room with the camera. I’ll let you know if I change my mind on it though!

And yes, that is Joseph on the screen in the picture above.