When you’re handy with tools and you’re thinking about updating a 1980s era playhouse for the grandkids, it’s easy for the planning to get a bit grandiose.

Christopher Boehm has been living on a spacious wooded Upper Milford lot at the base of South Mountain his whole life. As a youth in the 1960s, Boehm enjoyed a tree house he built in tall trees at the family homestead.

Boehm married Maryann DeLong, of Salisbury Township, in 1977 and they began their own family in the 1980s. The couple decided a playhouse for their children among the trees near the tree house would be a good idea.

The playhouse was a play haven for the Boehm’s young children. “It was a simple affair then, with eight small windows that opened for air circulation. It was furnished with a small piano keyboard and some doll furniture,” Boehm said.

“Our children and their friends spent much time playing inside for 10 years or so. When the children grew up, the playhouse became more of a conversation piece than it was used,” Boehm said.

Then in 2010, the Boehm’s daughter, Melanie and her husband, Michael, had twins and the playhouse became relevant again.

“The playhouse was then more than 20 years old and needed repairs and updating,” Boehm said.

In 2011, Boehm started a part-time repair project that took more than three years to complete.

A major difference in the playhouse remodel was the addition of a fieldstone veneer matching the stone veneer on the Boehm homestead.

“The stone work was the most time-consuming part of the job,” Boehm said. “Each piece was located and numbered first and then applied.

“The pointing was more time-consuming than applying the veneer. A 4-by-4 section might take a full day, with a few days of numb wrists afterward,” Boehm said.

Boehm also added new windows, a door and roof shingles to match the family home.

“Now, with five grandchildren, the same spot in the woods is seeing the third generation of use and enjoyment for the youngsters,” Boehm said.