One great thing about childhood is playing in play houses, or at least it always was for me. I never really had anything in particular, but that didn’t stop me from making stuff when I was old enough to figure things out on my own. My mom would allow us to have our own play houses inside, and these were always made with blankets and clothes pins. These might have looked like little tents, but to my brother and me, they were huge castles and rambling estates.
You can buy just about any type of play houses that you can imagine today. There are many different ones sitting outside my local Toys R Us on any given day. These are above and beyond anything I had ever seen as a child, and most people my age would tell you that same thing. They are often made out of plastic, so they do last longer than most wooden type play houses. They don’t look as good, but they may last for generations. They also have smaller ones inside, and some that you can only find online.
If you are like me though, you prefer something you can put up and take down. I once got a Wiggles play house for my daughter, and it was up in her room for quite a while. We decided she wasn’t playing in it enough to warrant it taking up so much space, so we took it down about six months ago. Now, she’s asking about play houses, and wants us to put the Wiggles one back up. My husband is stalling because it was very complicated when we first put it up, and he’s not looking forward to doing it again.
If you don’t want to spend the money because you don’t think something like that would not be used enough, you can always teach your kids how to build their own play houses. I did this all the time, and quite often all I would need was a string tied between two trees, a few large blankets, and some clothes pins. Many times, our play houses would double as tents, and we would sleep outside. This isn’t safe in some areas, but it was just fine where we lived. We had a play house any time we wanted one, and we could always take it down and you would never have known it was there.
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