Are your kids getting older, but the backyard keeps staying the same? Spice things up in your landscape by adding a play space for your kids. As a parent, this is a win-win if you already have an Outdoor space you love. If the kids love it as well, you will all want to get outside as much as possible! The good thing about being in Middle Tennessee is that a good outdoor space for everyone can truly be enjoyed most of the year. A well built playhouse can even be fun when it’s raining!
Despite what you might think, you don’t have to spend much to get the creative retreat your kids are begging for. Loads of DIY ideas are floating around, making it easy to update your yard to match your growing family. We are glad to share some of those with you today.
Backyard Games
Playing games outside is one of the best parts of being a kid and sometimes the best part of the homestead for a tired parent! Kids are very good at inventing outdoor games, including simply taking a ball outside and making an afternoon of it.
But what about board games? You cant play those outside, right? Wrong. You can create permanent game stations outside like this picnic table checkerboard. Like this family, you can paint a wooden picnic table or any outdoor table you don’t mind marking up with a game board, and use shells or rocks as game pieces. Get creative; you don’t have to limit it to checkers. What about chess, or even games that require dice? Just find a square-shaped rock, paint dots on it, and you’ve got backyard yahtzee! We might just happen to know of a place you can get some pretty good rocks, too.
DIY Playhouse
Most little kids love the idea of running their very own home. You’ve probably found out by now that most ready-made playhouses cost far more than your budget. Lucky for you, we found some great blueprints for playhouses of all kinds. This blog post offers free plans, pictures, and detailed directions for over 30 types of playhouses. No more excuses for putting off playhouse construction! There is truly something for everyone in that post.
If you’re more of the tree house type, this simple design from DIY Network shows you how to pick a good tree, lay out the deck, add walls and a ceiling, and finish it.
Kid-Sized Outdoor Kitchens
Playhouses and game boards aren’t the only things kids love to see in their backyards. How about a kitchen? Kids love to get messy, and of course, outside is the only place moms and dads love it, too. The kitchen in this play area as well as other ideas in that blog post will inspire you to all kinds of backyard creativity. Bring out some play pots and pans and let them get muddy, create a gravel play area for their trucks and construction vehicles, or make a boat racetrack. These ideas really are simple!
A way to make sure your kids will enjoy the area is to get your kids involved and see what they would like to have outside the most, too!
Do you have an outdoor kid space?
There are so many things you can do with the outdoors for your children. This post 31 DIY ideas for making your backyard fun for kids has some pretty outrageous ones including a trampoline diving board and a tire mountain! If you have small children and you want to landscape your backyard for them on your own, you might want to read this moms experience of landscaping with toddlers.
Do you already have a landscaped play area for your kids? What does it look like? How long did it take and what tips do you have? Or maybe you are planning to do something like we’ve talked about here. Please share any tips or tricks you have!
The post Creating Your Outdoor Living Space: Kids Play Area appeared first on The Rock Place.
