will Akiva ever want a dollhouse?

Because if so, check this out:

Too Santa Monica beach-side PCH? Then how about this?

...and how about this for a kitchen!:

...or will children still prefer the classic Victorian? Who knows, but I thought these were adorable. I stumbled across these from a company called "brinca dada" here, (researching prefab contemporary playhouses- I was looking for full-sized since this one isn't gonna work) and since I have a boy not a girl, I felt I had to share them. I don't mean to be sexist, but the dolls and little bed the dolls sleep in that I bought for Akiva have never been touched except for him throwing all the dolls out and jumping in the little bed himself and doing something that looks like a bucking bronco.

What do you think?

my architect

Matt and I have decided its time to make our back yard into a desert no-water landscape. A friend had a great idea and suggested we do a sort of zen garden meets desert experience. And since we have no suitable trees for a treehouse, I want to include a playhouse for Akiva.

I have to admit I have been obsessed with forts and mini houses my whole life. I think it's because my father was an architect (now retired). I remember the best summers of childhood were when he would construct some sort of wonderful fort for us out of something he found- like sticks and hay. If there was enough snow, he'd build us igloos in the winter- one was big enough for the whole family to sit inside and sip hot cocoa by candlelight.

And then we took a day trip once to Newport, Rhode Island, and saw the mansions and I was haunted by how lucky those Vanderbilt kids were- not for the huge mega mansion with platinum leafing on the ceilings,

but for their amazing little mini mansion playhouse!

And so I thought Akiva should have a little playhouse built into the design of our new back yard. And if we are doing the zen garden thing, how about a little mini japanese tea house? I found a website, called "Life of An Architect" where the architect had posted all elevations, renderings, blueprints and final shots of the very thing I had imagined!

I was so excited! Being the daughter of an architect, clearly I was able to tap into the children's play house design zeitgeist. I showed Matt my findings to add to our own little piles of amateur renderings,

...and Matt was silent. "It kind of looks like something out of Apocalypse Now, like maybe some torture is going on in there." Hmm. Unfortunately, he was kind of right.

We might have to call on Grandpa for another stick and hay fort.