The Playhouse Company

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Our new website is still snagging unfortunately but hopefully will be live very soon – we’re better at creating and installing playhouses, see bottom paragraph! Well, the busy season is fast approaching and our order books are now full until mid-April. Luckily it’s not all hard work at The Playhouse Company and last week we were over in Amsterdam visiting our distributor for Holland and Germany. We were seeing Kidshousekeeping, a Dutch company who specialise in distributing a number of different playhouses including ours – www.theplayhousecompany.nl. It was great to catch up with all of them and also enjoy a nice couple of days in Amerstdam too! In total we have 13 foreign language sites across Europe and as far afield as Mexico and South Africa.

We recently installed this lovely little playhouse in a small city garden. Following a special request the front door has a star shaped cut out window and there’s even a door bell for the door.

Any shape can be cut out for a window and for two young Liverpool supporters they wanted the Liverpool Football Club logo. We relish the challenge of such requests, plus children love having their own input with a design – so let them be creative and put us to the test!

Recently Matt, one of our team leaders took on the responsibility of managing all our deliveries. Playhouse Company products all include delivery and installation in their price – this is not simply a matter of sending a package with a courier who may or may not turn up when expected or who at best provides a possible six home time slot. Here at The Playhouse Company things are a bit different and we pride ourselves on providing you with a hassle free day which hopefully you and your child will cherish.

• When you place your order we will allocate a delivery – this can either be a week commencing date or if you have a specific date in mind we can put in a firm date
• Two weeks prior to delivery we will be in contact to reconfirm the date and time
• We will give you an arrival time and the name of who will be installing your playhouse
• Your playhouse will be loaded on our own vehicles here in Herefordshire and transported directly to your garden
• We endeavour to do our utmost to be with you on time and should traffic be proving a problem we will phone to let you know
• We will install your playhouse and leave it all ready for your children to enjoy
• We ensure everything is left tidy and any rubbis is taken with us when we leave

… Beat that for great service?

Spring finally feels on the horizon here in beautiful Herefordshire and we’re looking forward to our own fresh start as our shiny new website is due to launch tomorrow (fingers and toes crossed!). With the glorious weather comes a host of playhouse enquires and we’ve been speaking to people all over the country – from London and Reading to Southampton, Torquay, Chatham and Liverpool. Given the approaching busy summer period the last few weeks have been spent building up stocks of windows and doors which should provide a quicker turn around for some of our new stock products. Another little project that David has been working on was the construction of this rather sweet, little play boat which will be sailing off to its new owner soon!

Here is another of our recent products which we really like (see pics below); it’s a playhouse with a raised play area and numerous extras to explore and have fun with. There’s an internal first floor with a veranda to the side and a chair swing beneath. Inside there is also a black board fitted and the main door has a letter box and a name plague fitted above – so there’s no excuse for getting your mail mixed up!

Also, this week is the Education Show at the NEC Birmingham and if you’re in anyway involved in teaching or developing children we’d highly recommend attending. It’s the largest show for all aspects of supplies to schools and is a truly excellent showcase for all that is available.

This was an incredibly exciting project which we finished last week – something for the truly adventurous.

The structure incorporates a playhouse, a castle, a decking area and multiple activities which provide exciting areas for children of all ages to play with and enjoy (not to mention adults!). The awesome specification includes – a playhouse, a castle over a river, staircase to the river bank, rope bridge, fireman’s pole, swing seat, horse swing and climbing wall – for a child the play potentials here are endless!

We’re just about getting back to normal here at Playhouse Company headquarters after a manic time last week with deliveries going out to London, Swansea, Liverpool and Birmingham. Half term is always extremely busy as it is the perfect opportunity for installing into schools and nurseries while the children are all off. As a result our factory in Kingsland was pretty quiet with people either out on deliveries or off taking holiday themselves.

Seeing as spring is nearly upon us (some days it feels closer than others) here are some tips for sprucing up your playhouse ready for the summer months.

• On nice days leave the door open to get air flowing through
• Clear out any build-up of leaves / debris from around the outside – particularly when hard up against a fence or hedge
• Wash down any internal plywood (especially the roof) with a watered down bleach solution, as the damp air often causes a slight mould growth, whilst it is perfectly safe this is most effective way of removing it
• Wash down outside decking areas that have become slippery, again this is due to a very thin layer of fungus growing on the surface, a pressure washer is great at removing it and then a watered down bleach solution will stop it for a season – this should be repeated each year
• If your playhouse could use a new coat of paint, we recommend sadolin products as these are the one we use and are readily available from crown decorator centres – to help further, here’s our colour index. If you need any help locating colours or paints, do give us a shout.

On a final note, we are very excited to now be in the final stages of tweaking our new website … Will keep you posted!

We now have a dedicated building on our main site specially designed for painting and spraying – it’s been very busy since it opened a couple of weeks ago! Through a complex system of filters and fans it provides a clean air environment and guarantees that no overspray goes out into the environment. The spray booth represents the end of the line for all our products, where they are hand painted or sprayed before being shipped off and beginning the journey to their new homes. Each component of a playhouse is painted separately prior to the final assembly, this means that some precise labelling is required to ensure they are painted correctly and can be easily assembled after. On average, around forty litres of stain and paint are used a week – this allows a huge choice of up to eighty colours in two different finishes.

As we have been posting on facebook, last week saw the completion of our extremely exciting project for Longleat Safari Park. Longleat house is probably most famous for its safari park but it also has a magnificent children’s play area within the adventure area. The Playhouse Company were given the task of creating a new castle structure and we have some pictures the finished product – see below the photo of Matt (part of the installation team) hard at work!

The launch of our new website is fast approaching, where we will be unveiling our exciting new range of products. For the last while we have been busy advertising and in the last month you may have caught us in English Garden, Period Living, Home and Gardens, Angels and Urchins, Country Living, Junior Magazine, RHS The Garden, BBC Gardens Illustrated, The Mail on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph.

For the last six weeks we’ve been busy building our fifteen brand new playhouse designs, ready for a photo shoot that took place last Saturday. One of the new products we’re particularly excited about is a playhouse which incorporates a shed – or a shed which incorporates a  playhouse depending on how you look at it! What makes this playhouse within a shed so clever is that we’ve devised a way to keep the interior spaces separate. As you can see from the left hand photo, from one angle it looks like a nice shed and from the other a lovely playhouse with a veranda, so all the family are happy. It provides children their own play area, Dad with a new shed to play in and Mum a tidy garden and some peace and quiet as everyone else is happy. Full details of this clever playhouse /shed will be on our new website which launches in a few weeks. If you can’t wait until then, do get in touch for more information.

Last Saturday’s photo shoot involved all our staff and was a tremendous team effort. In the morning we gave the new playhouse designs the ultimate in road testing when we had an open morning and invited people to bring in their children – and in some cases parents! It is a safe to say a fantastic time was had by all and our new products were incredibly popular across the ages. Lots of photos were taken of this special day and will be posted on the new website.

When putting up any playhouse or shed (let alone the fifteen we erected last Saturday) it is important to carefully consider the issue of planning permission. This has to be one of the most frequently asked questions and our best advice is to speak with your neighbours prior to installation. Local authrotirites are also always happy to offer advice to local residents. For more details visit our website

After spending an afternoon in the garden last weekend it was great to see the first signs of spring – the snow drops are out and the daffodils are starting to show, plus there’s even a little more daylight in the afternoons. It won’t be too long before we’re outside and filling our lungs with fresh air after a long winter. It’s approaching The Playhouse Company’s busiest time of the year in about 7/8 weeks, so if you are thinking of getting a playhouse for the start of the season, we’d recommend getting in touch.

2011 has been off to a great start for us, especially as our new offices have finally opened and are fully operational. They are on the same site as the workshops and comprise of an entrance area for visitors, two individual offices (one for me that’s large enough to host meetings and the other for Kay), there’s a general office for Val and Zoe, two new toilets complete with cloakroom area and a great little kitchen. What makes all this truly remarkable is that it was completed almost entirely by The Playhouse Company staff – talk about team building! I would like to say a huge thanks to Nicki and Ian who did the plastering, Shane who sorted all the plumbing, Kim and Mark who did all the wiring and John who laid the carpets. The job started on 3^rd January and we all moved in on the 31^st January – a brilliant effort all round!

As if new offices were not enough we also took this opportunity to install a new computer network – made up of 2 severs, 5 computers and a staggering 1000 metres of network cable. A huge thanks to Luke who undertook all this work!

Our only hitch came from BT who were unable to meet the original installation dates in December due to snowy weather. This meant a three week delay and only one operation phone line – opposed to the 10 which we normally operate with! I’m afraid we had hoped for a seamless transfer for the user and if our phone seems permanently engaged we apologise but do keep trying or send an email and we’ll call you back!

We’ve also remained extremely busy throughout producing beautiful playhouse. Last week saw an extremely exciting project come to fruition where one of our playhouses was shipped and installed in Romania. The playhouse is on a 4ft high platform and has a slide and rope ladder. There are also two tire swings and a vertical tunnel net with a climbing wall on the front … Plenty to keep you busy!

Hello,

A warm season’s greetings to our first blog! This is Richard and Kay and together we run The Playhouse Company from the heart of rural Herefordshire.

We first started to venture into the world of playhouses 18 years ago when we were looking to buy one as a gift for our then, young son, Luke. As we searched for the dream playhouse, we were disappointed to realise that most just looked like sheds, opposed to being designed for the children who would be using them. The choice was limited, the quality of materials poor and there was a complete lack of attention to safety. Finally, Richard asked Luke what sort of playhouse he would like and together they got designing. Richard then picked up his tools and set about making the dream a reality, it was a tremendous success with other commissions soon following.

Demand steadily grew and in 2000 The Playhouse Company was officially born with Richard working full time on the design and building of playhouses. We have continued to expand and now employ 15 full time staff, with 11 in the workshop and 4 running the office.

We have experience of building to every size and shape – from tree houses and castles to boats and wendy houses. What we believe makes our company special is our complete focus on the child, from the design through to the build with safety and durability coming as standard.

We hope that you will climb on board and follow us here on our blog. Our aim is to, not only provide you with useful information about The Playhouse Company, but also post a range of articles and information that may be of use or interest to you.