Isn't that a charming cottage? Its square footage is larger than a lot of the entries in AT's Smallest Coolest contest every year, but it isn't a house...or rather it is a house. A play house.
According to a recent article on Inside Bay Area, these playhouses are very popular with people who want to give their children the opportunity to play in a controlled environment rather than risk sending them to a local park, and a custom playhouse by La Petit Maison seems to them to be the logical choice.
Take a look at the interiors.
You can customize these play houses to come with running water and power. This is an example of one of the playhouse kitchens.
Many of these houses are two stories - check out the stairway, below.
While we love a little Victorian Gingerbread, the interiors are leaving us cold. If we want our children playing in the kitchen, why shouldn't that mean playing in our family kitchen, or cooking together? The interiors just look sterile to us, and cold. What do you think? Even if money were no object (because these are pricey!), is this something you would want to build for your children?
It seems like 'playing house' is usually more about using your imagination - pretending there is running water, pretending the wooden/plastic veggies are real, making a pretend bed out of some pillows and blankets. Where's the pretend here? Also I totally agree, why can't the kids just play in the actual kitchen/living room/bedroom etc? I'm not saying no play houses, but this seems like an extravagant substitution for a child's imagination. Also, what the heck do you do with that thing after your child has outgrown it?!
view bluestar's profile
I'm sorry, but this is just sick. If you have so much money that you have nothing better to buy than this bizarre space to shunt your children off to, then you need to reorder many of your priorities. I'm not usually a militant anti-stuff-ist, but seriously, what's wrong with people that this is on the market? Isn't there a point at which someone own enough material possessions? I mean, you know that the people who are buying these "play houses" have plenty of room for their children in their own actual house (or, I assume multiple houses around the world). Ugh.
I also would prefer it if APARTMENT therapy didn't feature this kind of product, clearly not intended for apartment or city living. :)
view fortytworoads's profile
Whoa! This doesn't exactly jive with small spaces idea. I think this playhouse may be bigger than our apartment. We should just get one of these to move into.
I love the idea of custom designing something but I would want my children involved and we would want to build it together. Our house would probably have mismatching doors and windowframes, cardboard boxes, and lots of holes...but we would love it. This house is pretty boring and stale. I'm not even sure it would be all that fun to play in.
view sarahwg's profile
Hmm, I think the idea behind this was probably well-meant, but I can't help wondering exactly what the risk is in taking one's children to the local park? If it's THAT dangerous to walk around at the park, you're probably better off spending the money moving to a better suburb!
I'm also slightly disturbed by the first mother in the article who had the playhouse built just for her daughter as "a respite away from [her] brothers". Wouldn't it be lovelier if the playhouse could be shared by the entire family?
view Kat's profile
This is giving me a weird, post-apocalyptic vision of Bay Area yuppies, strapped to meet their mortgages, renting the playhouse to (very short) recent immigrants, possibly the same ones they hire to do their housework.
view wende in the twin cities's profile
Good grief. This looks like the Bluth-house on "Arrested Development"...devoid of color and imagination. Why on earth wouldn't you just fence in your backyard and have the kids build a fort out of blankets and folding tables like I did when I was a kid?
view farleece's profile