Pallet playground! Handy dad crafts a wooden climbing frame – complete with a slide – for his children using left-over wood and saves himself £900
- Jamie Purchase, from Scunthorpe, created the playhouse using old wood pallets
- He said it only cost him £300 to make instead of buying new one for £1,200
- He nailed the structure to the wall and measured it to fit his son’s height
- Sanded playhouse to smooth sharp wooden shards and then painted it
A creative father-of-four created a lockdown playhouse for his children using a stack of old wood pallets.
Jamie Purchase, an electrician from Scunthorpe, said he saved around £900 by making the house himself instead of forking £1,200 for a similar new one.
Sharing his results on the Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK Facebook group, Purchase was met with hundreds of compliments from other bargain-loving parents.
Many said they would try to create similar structures in their own garden. The carpentry fan told Femail how he created the playhouse and urged woodwork fans to have a go at recreating it at home.
Jamie Purchase, an electrician from Scunthorpe, created a playhouse for his children from scratch for £300 using wood pallets and said he made a saving of £900 by doing the house himself instead of forking out £1,200 for a new one
The father-of-four started by nailing the house’s frame to his house’s wall in his garden, using a power drill
The dad-of-four started by drawing a sketch of how he wanted the house to look like.
He used both reclaimed wood and new pallets in order to bring his design to life, as well as his faithful toolbox.
He started by nailing the playhouse’s frame to his house’s wall and supported it with legs made of wood pallets to make it sturdy.
He then built some railing to secure the structure, and moved on to creating the stairs.
Jamie had drawn a sketch of how he wanted to playhouse to look like and then got to work to make it a reality, using his toolbox and re-purposed wood pallets, as well as others purchased for the project
Jamie assembled the pallets to created a frame, using two wooden legs on each side to support it
Once the frame was drilled into the wall, he created four sturdy legs for the four-metres-wide house
He added a banister around the house, and took his 22-months-old son’s measurements to make sure they fit him.
For the finishing touches, Jamie sanded the wood to prevent any shards or hard edges, and varnished it, before painting the banister and railing in light blue.
He added a green slide and a net on the front of the house, as well as a climbing peg on its side.
Jamie used other pallet to create the playhouse’s flooring, as well as a security railing, which fit the measurements of his 22-months-old son
The handy dad created stairs with the same wood and nailed it to the structure. He then used other pallets to create a banister
The house can here be viewed from above haldway through Jamie’s ambitious DIY project after he created the railing and stairs
Parents loved Jamie’s DIY project and some were inspired to do the same for their own children
Parents were inspired by the electrician’s design and some felt motivated to do the same for their own children.
‘The boys would love this,’ one wrote.
‘Maybe we could do this for the kids, said another.
‘This is awesome,’ simply put another.
The strcuture, before Jamie got to paint it. He left enough space at the front to fit a slide and a climbing net
The father-of-four then sanded the wood to get rid of any shards or hard edges so his children would not caught themselves on them
Jamie painted the banister, railing and legs of the house in blue but kept the stairs as they were
At the end of the project, Jamie added the slide and climbing net, and fitted a climbing peg on the side of the house