{"id":1581,"date":"2010-06-24T10:13:18","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T16:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nerdflood.com\/?p=1581"},"modified":"2010-06-24T10:13:18","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T16:13:18","slug":"it-will-someday-be-a-playhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/it-will-someday-be-a-playhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"It will someday be a playhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

My wife got it in her head a couple of weeks back to do some major backyard landscaping renovations. The centerpiece of the work would include converting our old shed into a proper playhouse for the kids.<\/p>\n

I loved<\/em> the idea. I mean, who wouldn’t? We’re not using the shed for anything more than storing some old junk. And it wouldn’t take much work; just clean out the crap, tear down some boards, put up new ones, cut some overgrowth outside, new door, etc. Not a whole lot! It’ll be easy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Okay, I never actually fooled myself into thinking it would be easy<\/em>, but I didn’t think it would be a terribly complicated<\/em> effort. And honestly, it isn’t<\/em>. But it’s so far been a fairly interesting experience, as I will share with you now.<\/p>\n

I started clearing out the shed by removing loose boards and bits of wood and junk that had been stored in the rafters by previous owners of the property. Then I cleared out our miscellaneous yardwork materials and began the work of removing interior walls. Fairly simple.<\/p>\n

Every time I was finished working in the shed, I would blow my nose, and this dark crud would come out. It was kind of weird, and I suppose I should have paid more attention to it, but I figured it was just loose detritus floating around getting caught in my nose. Disgusting, sure, but not truly harmful. I started wearing a dust mask as I worked, and that took care of that particular problem.<\/p>\n

That’s when I discovered — much to my surprise — that our little shed was at one time a coal shed<\/em>. Apparently, they would haul in bushels of coal, store it in the shed, and come out for bucketfuls whenever required for their indoor heating needs.<\/p>\n

I needed no more proof that the shed once stored coal than when I eventually saw it spilling out from behind the planks I was prying off the walls.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mystery of the dark crud in my nose explained! I’ve probably already developed pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The other interesting aspect of working on the shed has been the bees<\/em>. Bumblebees, to be exact. They’ve been greeting me and watching me work so often that I figure they’re either really interested in the construction process in preparation for building their own<\/em> playhouses for their tiny bee babies, or they have a massive hive underneath the shed that we have unwittingly disturbed. I’ve killed quite a few of the pests, but every time I work in one particular portion of the shed, I can hear the faint buzzing underneath, and I know they must be organizing a protest of my thoughtless and selfish actions against the innocent bumblebee community.<\/p>\n

We’re calling an exterminator.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m sure these sound like particularly whiny<\/em> complaints, but I’m actually smiling as I write about this. I still love the idea of the playhouse, and I look forward to telling the kids (and the grandkids) the story of The Building of the Playhouse\u2122<\/strong> many, many times in the future. And once everything is said and done, I definitely look forward to the kids having a fun place in the backyard within which they can have pirate adventures and tea parties. Side by side, if they so desire, though I don’t know how keen pirates are on drinking tea. I know it sounds cliche, and people who don’t have kids really can’t understand the concept, but thinking about those kids smiling and playing in something we’ve built ourselves<\/em> really does make all the pain and effort worth it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I just hope I can get it done before winter<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My wife got it in her head a couple of weeks back to do some major backyard landscaping renovations. The centerpiece of the work would include converting our old shed into a proper playhouse for the kids. I loved the idea. I mean, who wouldn’t? We’re not using the shed for anything more than storing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[252],"tags":[654,655,656,657,65,125,658,659],"class_list":["post-1581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-bees","tag-building","tag-coal","tag-construction","tag-family","tag-kids","tag-playhouse","tag-pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis","last-post"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}