The Wall

When I was a young girl, I was very into forts and little hiding places. Any chance I got, I carved out a little nook of my own in the house or outside. I remember playing outside between the bushes and the house in New York, in a little cranny that was most likely just big enough for my ten year old body. I remember wrapping myself up in blankets, taking a book, and hiding out in a closet all day. 

As I got older, the fascination with nesting never left me, but it grew into wanting MORE. I wanted a treehouse inside. A place to climb and swing. I wanted to live like an animal. 

Fast forward to twenty years later, and I have two kids of my own. If you're a parent than you know that plenty of the choices we make (when it comes to what to introduce our kids to) are influenced by our own childhoods. We want to give our kids the things we always wanted but could never have or to introduce them to the things we loved. 

So when Peatuk started climbing and jumping on all the furniture, I laid down the law. No- you cannot break my 3000 lev bed-set. But yes, I will create a place for you to go wild inside. I understand that need, and I will do my best to fulfill it. 

The wall started as a brief conversation around Christmas time. I mentioned to Nikola that I wanted to build an indoor jungle gym of some sort for Peatuk (and eventually Jojo) expecting him to veto the idea. To my surprise, he agreed and we started sketching out different ideas and sourcing materials. 

Nikola's sister caught wind of our plans, and had the family pitch in to buy a set of climbing holds for his climbing wall for his birthday, which meant we had to get our butts in gear to finish his wall for his birthday.

We went with a simple design, and because we have neither tools nor the space to do woodwork, we tried to order as much stuff as ready as possible.

This ended up being our process: 

The Swedish walls came stained but disassembled, so we had to get gluing and screwing ourselves. 

Nikola and I actually had a really fun morning putting the walls together. Turns out that we both enjoy these kinds of physical projects, and we got to mess about and be silly just us… which is something we don't get to do often.

We then sent Nikola to get wood for the climbing wall. This is where things got a little dicey. Instead of buying 1.8cm plywood, he went with 2.5cm wood decking. Sure, it's stronger, but it's a LOT of screwing to get in.

By Peatuk's birthday party, thanks to a help of a friend, we had about 3/4 of the wall finished. Enough for the kids to play, but not DONE. 

I then put together the three Swedish walls. We had quite a time anchoring them to the outside wall of our apartment, as it is brick. We may have to revisit that issue.

Then some artistic touches… and a wall! 

We still have some more paint to add. we also want to install a set of rings and a swing. But so far it's getting plenty of happy use. Plus, super fun project. I would call the wall a success.