Pallet Playhouse

Step 17 Finally-- the real work! The playhouse floor/deck.

I finally got tired of fooling around in the garage and decided to get started. It was cold (February), but I was eager and full of energy after being shut up all winter.

I salvaged a bunch of old 4x4's  and set them on some bricks and cinder blocks (all free). I built a 8x10 square from reclaimed pressure-treated 2x4's I got from a guy who had torn down his deck.  He posted them on craigslist and I've been using them for every single project I've done over the last few years. He gave me almost 500 linear feet of 2x6's! 

I leveled the whole thing by adding and removing bricks.  You'll want to do that under the 4x4's.

When it was close, I  laid across the pallet 2x4's using the center 4x4 as a stringer.  This worked very well as I did not need to cut any of the 2x4's-- I simply laid them side to side.

Notice the funky pallet 2x4's in the picture-- they have small, half-oval sections missing.  This is where you would slide in the pallet jack. 

The overall area is approx. 8x10.  The playhouse itself is 8X8, the two-foot protruding section is the where the deck will go.

Through out the build process, I constantly had to adjust spacing and the like to accomodate the roughy 4-foot 2x4's and 30" 1x (one by) lumber.

I had various pieces of plywood for the floor, but I also had to make sure that the floor joists were no further apart than 15", in case I had to use any of the 1x6's.  Why 15"?  Because the short lengths of lumber need to have an alternating "butt" end, much like brickwork.  A long, continuous joint would be too weak.  By alernating, you add strength.