by Calvin Robinson

Created on: November 13, 2008   Last Updated: December 15, 2008

One of the more memorable adventures in my life came about in a rather unique way. I am the father of three daughters and was looking for a way to make a little extra cash to help pay for Christmas back in 2004. I have a creative side and some experience in building houses, so my mind began thinking along these lines. Of course, I could not build a house for Christmas but I could build a playhouse. I thought about the idea and did a little shopping at the local Lowe's home improvement store for material prices. I found that I could afford the materials to build a 6' x 6' x 6' playhouse, but had to spend the remainder of my small Christmas budget to do so. I figured with more than a month and a half to Christmas, I could sell the playhouse and make enough profit to have a very nice Christmas for my family. Thus the project began with the hope and expectation of a fun adventure in crafting a unique children's playhouse and making a little extra money to boot.

My creative side took over as I visualized a cute little playhouse designed to look like a little cabin and complete with a porch that had a lesser roof pitch than the rest of the house. The house took shape very quickly and in two days of work I had it mostly done except for some trim and a few odds and ends. Then is when the cold weather set in and the short days made working on the final touches difficult to accomplish after my regular work day. Then came the rain and I began to wonder if I could get the project finished in time to sell it for Christmas. My daughters came to the rescue by painting the house and trim during the day when the temperatures were mild and the light was good. Finally, the playhouse was ready and it was so cute I just could not imagine it would not sell very quickly.

I needed to set a price before I could sell the playhouse, so I figured the cost of the materials and then my hours of work. I found the materials were about $400 and I had about twenty four hours of work in the project. I gave my labor a conservative value and figured the playhouse would need to sell for about $900. I made some flyers and posted some advertisements for the house as well as mentioned it around every potential customer I met. There was a lot of interest and many comments of how cute it was, but the price was just too much for anyone in the depressed rural economy of Western North Carolina. This is when I decided to bring the price down to $700 and start hauling the playhouse to local parking lots for

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