Dollhouse? No way, build a Toy Treehouse!

This project all started because I came across some pins of some really cool toy treehouses on Pinterest. About 5 minutes of scrolling for what was originally dollhouse ideas, I was like dollhouse? What dollhouse? Can we build a toy treehouse instead?!

To be fair, our kids already have and love our Fisher Price dollhouse, so a treehouse seemed like a pretty cool little addition to their world of imagination.

Time to build a Toy Treehouse!

Why build a treehouse instead of buying one? Well, if you do a quick Google search for a toy treehouse, you’ll soon realize they can easily run you anywhere from $60 – $160 per toy. That ain’t cheap.

So I took my kids for a walk and like the crazy neighbor that you always wonder what the hell they are doing holed up in their garage, I dragged home yet another massive fallen branch from the great outdoors.

Then I went to Dollarama and The Dollar Tree to pick up some wood craft supplies. So it’s a half built, half bought project.

But still a LOT less expensive.

At first I was like I am totally going to use a manual miter saw and cut my branches and do this on my own.

Within about 10 minutes of sawing I was asking my husband to come help drag out his circular saw and drill to help me slice the branches into a nice “Y” shape position for the base of the treehouse.

Let me tell you, nothing says Til Death Do Us Part like having your husbands circular saw come at your hands while you hold the tree branches off the edge of his pick up truck.

STEP 1

It went like this. I picked up 3 cutting boards – 1 big one and 2 smaller ones.

We drilled a hole into the bottom of the bigger board and used Gorilla wood glue for all the gluing of each cutting board to each respective branch.

Sanded down the tops of the sliced branches to make sure they were level.

Took over my husbands garage bench drying each board overnight untouched for 2-3 days. La, la, la…

And it wound up like this.

I had to break out the Canada love for this one. I know the US has their Fourth of July parties, celebrations and crafts going on all over blog land right now, so I had to get in on the action north of the border. Canada Day is July 1st.

ITEMS USED FOR THE TREEHOUSE PARTS

First the top treehouse ‘house’ part – this is a craft bird house that is in every single Dollarama store right now. I used simple wooden dowels and wood glue to make a log roof. The Welcome sign is from a thrift store.

Had to add in a dreamcatcher. Canada has a huge Indigenous population and this was a nod of respect to their culture and history.

The wooden wagon wheel swing is from a broken wagon lamp that we used to have. I took apart the wagon wheels to save for future crafts. It’s tied up with twine to an eye screw screwed into the branch.

The bucket (a wedding favour party supply) is attached via a plastic screw and cap that I glued to the side of the house. The twine to raise it spins around a metal bobbin case that you can get in the sewing aisle of Walmart.

The bobbins are also used as the base of the flag pole.

Each ladder was made with craft wooden dowels that were trimmed to size and then glued together. The twine was tied around for decorative purposes.

Got Moose? And a mushroom night lite.

I dedicate this post to the amazing Lynne Knowlton from Design The Life You Want To Live. If you want to see a real life treehouse go check out her site and prepare to have your mind blown at what you can make out reclaimed barn wood.

I have to thank my husband James who did majority of the work on this with all the sawing. Because me and the miter saw are just not getting along these days.

And hey, someone had to take the photos…