Dad builds $30K playhouse for kids
It’s large enough to actually live in and bigger than some apartments.
Avery and Violet Boyd, ages 5 years and 21 months, can’t get enough of the two-story playhouse their father built for them in the backyard of their home in Highland.
“It’s definitely been a labor of love, all the way through,” said Adam Boyd, who owns a residential remodeling business, ATB Building. The playhouse, which he wrapped up working on in August, was a yearlong project that he designed and built from the ground up.
Boyd, 39, said he decided to invest his money into something his daughters could enjoy for years. In total, building the playhouse cost him $30,000 — but he’s not rich, he said, he just “wanted to do something special for the girls.”
“I got a little bit crazy, I guess,” Boyd said, laughing while standing outside the playhouse behind his home, which is in a secluded, wooden area out in the country.
After work and on weekends, he put hours into the playhouse. The idea began with a discarded green slide that Boyd found on the side of the road. It sat around the backyard for three years before he decided to build a structure around it.
“It started off as a modest playhouse and kept growing and evolving,” he explained.
But the vision isn’t complete. Next, Boyd plans to add a 100to-150-foot zip line that will connect the upper level with a tree in the backyard.
“I’m really excited,” said Avery. Her favorite thing about the playhouse is the rock wall, she said, and her Barbie house, with five of her favorite Barbies. She has a pet guinea pig, Guinea, who likes to run around the playhouse with the family dog, Louie.
“Every morning, they come out here and read stories,” Boyd said.
His daughters spend all of their free time in the playhouse. Avery hosts tea parties there, and the girls eat dinner inside almost every night. Their mother, Jennifer, who works as a teacher, spent much of the summer in the playhouse with the girls, teaching them numbers and spelling — there’s a giant chalkboard wall that wraps around the upper level, so they can write and draw.
“There are no electronic devices in the playhouse,” Boyd said. “It’s a place to play and be a kid.”