In 2023, Kat Beath of Ladue wanted to give her daughters a present they’d never forget. So, instead of shopping at a toy store, she grabbed her power tools, stacks of wood, along with gallons of paint, and made the gift herself.
You could call it the ultimate DIY gift.
Get a weekly dose of home and style inspiration
Subscribe to the St. Louis Design+Home newsletter to explore the latest stories from the local interior design, fashion, and retail scene.
Built by Beath, the playroom boasts a custom, life-size playhouse and jungle gym complete with a rock-climbing wall.
“It’s fun to give them something I can’t buy,” says the mother of two. “They get so much stuff, but I hope they’ll remember this when they’re older and realize that there was time and thought put into it.”
Beath was inspired by an Instagram post about a mom who built a science lab for her children. Beath thought she could create an indoor playhouse for her daughters. “I knew my girls wouldn’t want a laboratory but I kept thinking about other options,” she says. Her daughters Lenni, 6, and Campbell, 3, love pretend-play, which gave her the idea for the house, measuring 7.5 x 4 feet and featuring a dutch door that transforms the structure into a store or food truck.
This wasn’t the first time Beath had dabbled in DIY. Using her dad’s old power tools, she’s made cosmetic fixes to a fireplace mantel and began building a mudroom with cubbies. “I YouTube pretty much everything,” she says. “I make a lot of mistakes.”
It took Beath about 50 hours to complete the playhouse over a five-week span, and she did most of the work in her garage—sometimes late into the night—so that her daughters wouldn’t pick up on the surprise. Beath, who works in finance at the global dog brand Bark, says the most challenging part of building the house was making sure all the pieces fit together like a puzzle. “They say ‘measure twice, cut once,’ and I’m like, ‘measure once, cut five times,’” she says with a laugh. “I had to build one wall twice because the brick wasn’t long enough to cover the frame.”
Beath spent approximately $1,500 on supplies, most of which she purchased at Home Depot and on Amazon.
The girls loved the playhouse so much that Beath decided to surprise them with something else the following year. “Campbell started being able to do the monkey bars this summer, and we’re always lacking physical activity ideas for them in the winter, so I thought [a jungle gym] could be fun,” she says.
Beyers Lumber and Hardware in Overland cut the wood for the rock climbing wall, but Beath did the sanding and drilling. She ordered the monkey bars from a specialty shop in New York and found rock-climbing holds at Cryptic Climbing in Springfield, MO. “Nick Hartman at Cryptic Climbing was so kind and helped me pick out the holds knowing the size of the wall and that it was for two kids,” she says. He also shared a blog post with instructions on how to build the climbing wall. The holds can be moved around and screwed into different areas on the wall to change the climbing pattern once the kids need a new challenge.
“I did a lot of research and knew everything had to go into studs, but the wall is completely paneled, so I couldn’t really use a stud finder,” she says. “That was by far the hardest part. Studs are usually 16 inches apart, but it didn’t feel like that. One was 15 inches, one was 18 inches. You’ll see a lot of extra holes, which drive me crazy.”
Beath found a ninja warrior kit on Amazon that’s meant to be used between two trees, allowing the builder to hook various obstacles to a slack line. She’s attached a swing, trapeze bar, and climbing rope to the hooks mounted to the bars.
The cost of the jungle gym was around $1,000 and took about half the time to complete as the playhouse. “It was so much easier. Honestly, putting together the Barbie Dream House was harder than this,” she says.
Beath knows that the girls will ultimately outgrow these builds, and when that day comes she plans to redo the room. But for now, the girls play in it everyday.
“I get excited when they use it because I know it wasn’t all in vain,” she says. “It also brings me joy to have put these together for them. When I started building, I felt like I was coming back into making time for my own hobbies.”
How will she outdo herself the next time?
Lenni has already put in her request: A princess castle with 20 floors.
