Kids Turning Playhouses Into Wonderlands

KidsCraft Cottage - Photo by toydirectory.com.

Most of us can think back to a childhood where our favorite toy was our imagination - playing house, acting out scenes from our favorite stories, and making up our own adventures. Little kids, then and now, are naturally creative and love to explore.

The founders of KidsCraft Playhouse were reminded of this about a year ago when they were still in the financial services industry and decided to change office spaces. They took their children and grandchildren along during their weekend moving efforts, and noticed that the kids were much more interested in playing with the big moving boxes than the toys and coloring books that were brought along.

“They never touched the toys we brought. It was the major moving boxes. It was, ‘Dad could you cut a hole in this for a door. Can you tape this together. Can we color this.’ It took us a few weeks, and then a light bulb went off. We said, ‘We could do this,’ and that’s how this began,” said Paul Isbell, vice president and co-founder of KidsCraft Playhouse.

“Last September, we set out to accomplish our goal of producing an eco-friendly line of playhouses for children. We wanted to have the right design, with it being 100 percent recycled material. We were lucky to find a great manufacturer out of Minnesota to build all of your products the way we wanted. Its worked out quite well,” added Mr. Isbell.

KidsCraft Shuttle. Photo by momblognetwork.com.

Right now, the company has two playhouses - a cottage and space ship - that are each designed to fit up to four seven-year-olds inside, and as part of the company’s children’s charitable work, it has given over 100 playhouses away to various youth support non-profit organizations.

Through this, KidsCraft has also learned about some interesting ways that kids are using the playhouses. “The girls play like it’s their first house. They drag everything they can into it. They are doing their reading in it. They are doing their playtime in it, too. The boys doing everything from playing army men to space explorers (with the rocket), and it goes on and on. A lot of girls love the rocket too, which is great, but surprised us,” said Mr. Isbell.

The company is also now in the process of developing a castle, barn, and tractor playhouse. New playhouses will be constructed to the same material standards as the ones that are currently in production, which will include the drawing aspect of the structures. All of the playhouses have starter drawings - the cottages have suns, and the rockets have stars and a comets - with lots of open surface space for children to add their own drawings.

This aspect of the playhouses also caught the attention of the Art Institute of Atlanta. Mr. Isbell said, “They are using it as part of their curriculum, as a real world project. We gave them examples, and they went ahead and illustrated the miniature and full-size versions in different genres and aspects.

“They did childlike aspects and more sophisticated professional aspects. Then, we went in and critiqued what the kids did. They asked us if we would participate with them on a semi-permanent level and be part of the core curriculum. Of course, we said, ‘Yes.’”

KidsCraft has also partnered with Trees for the Future, a non-profit which plants trees to help protect the environment.

The organization says, “Planting trees in agro-forestry systems provides a myriad of benefits, such as food; forage for animals; sustainable fuel wood and construction materials; increased agricultural yields; improved water infiltration and aquifer recharge; and protection of soils from wind and water erosion.”

As part of its partnership with Trees for the Future, KidsCraft has been planting one tree for every playhouse it has sold since the company’s beginning, and is in the process of planting between 500 to 1,000 trees this month in honor of Earth Day (April 22).

“They are a phenomenal organization. As long as we are alive, we will continue to support them,” said Mr. Isbell.

Beyond its charitable work, KidsCraft is also in the process of growing on the commercial side with expansion progress in European outlets, as well as continuing to grow nationally through retailers and its online presence at: Kidscraftusa.com.

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