Tower Playhouses & Playhouses with Slides
- How much does it cost to build a playhouse?
- What kind of paint do you use on a playhouse?
- How to build a tower playhouse
- Does a tower playhouse need a base?
- What are your best tower playhouses?
- How long do tower playhouses last?
- Do you need planning permission for a raised playhouse?
- Can you put a playhouse on grass?
If you have some time on your hands and access to tools, you might be thinking about building your own playhouse. What you won’t get, however, is any guarantee that materials will be in stock or of the same high-quality European sourced timber that we use in all our BillyOh playhouses. For more on whether it’s cheaper to build or buy a playhouse, check out this post we wrote about just that.
We recommend that you use EN71-compliant (or water-based) paint for your playhouse interior. We also offer both trim and wall colour options on our BillyOh tower playhouses.
Our BillyOh wooden playhouses are delivered as ready-to-assemble tongue and groove panels. Simply follow the instructions provided with your order and, with the help of a friend and some basic tools, you can have your wooden playhouse up in no time!
We suggest following this step for all garden buildings - be it a shed or a kid’s playhouse. Building any outdoor building straight onto the ground isn’t advised!
You’ll end up with an uneven frame that puts pressure on your playhouse and maybe even causes damp and rot. So you’ll want to build a base. Start by levelling and checking your ground level with string lines.
You can then either use pavers, a timber sub-frame, a gravel-filled plastic foundation base, or you can pour a small concrete slab. You can always dig out the four corners of your proposed site and sink paving stones in builder’s sand. This will allow you to raise your corner’s up or lower them as necessary.
Once your shed site is level, you can figure out how to build a shed base. For a children’s playhouse, you should be fine with building a timber sub-floor. As there won’t be much weight in your playhouse, building a concrete slab might be overkill. Just remember to raise your playhouse floor off the ground to avoid damp!
Our BillyOh wooden playhouses all feature the same high-quality European sourced timber and sturdy interlocking tongue and groove panels. But if we had to pick some of our favourite wooden playhouses to get the ball rolling, they’d be:
In a generous 6x7 size, the Lollipop Max is a large playhouse with lots of space to play and enjoy. The optional slide provides a fun way for your children to get down from the tower and another great feature for them to enjoy!
The Lollipop Tower Playhouse provides a fantastic space for children to play in. Optional extras such as the slide further enhance its appeal. With its Tongue and Groove construction, it is guaranteed to be enjoyed for many years to come!
With a smaller footprint, the Bunny Max Tower is the perfect outdoor activity space for a smaller garden. The optional slide provides a fun way for your children to get down from the tower and another great feature for them to enjoy!
Our BillyOh playhouses are built to last. Made from high-quality European sourced timber, we can offer our 10-year guarantee against rot, decay, and insect infestation. Regular treatment and maintenance may allow you to extend your wooden playhouse’s life beyond this point.
Playhouses aren’t generally considered to be permanent structures no matter their height. So you shouldn’t need planning permission. However, as rules vary county-to-country, it’s worth checking and running it by neighbours. All our BillyOh tower playhouses fall under the requirements for garden building height so should fall under ‘permitted development’ and not require planning permission.
Check out this resource for more information on planning permission UK.
We’d advise against building any outdoor structure (no matter how small) straight onto grass. Building on unlevel ground can put uneven pressure on your garden building causing a whole host of problems including cracked timber and pressure on windows. Instead, level the proposed site of your wooden playhouse and build either a small concrete base or a foundation from gravel, a timber sub-floor, or level pavers.
To see what other people built their playhouse on, check out our customer stories.