Use scrap wood and paint to create a DIY wooden town play set. Just add your own cars and people for hours of creative fun!

Kids love to play make believe and create their own little worlds. This wooden town play set will help them do just that. Create a tiny wooden play town that looks like your own town with familiar restaurants, schools, even your very own house! 

This play set is fun to add to our DIY Car Table for even more hours of pretend fun.

 

How to Make a Wooden Town Play Set

 

Start by cutting out your buildings and trees. We used scrap 2 x 4s for everything the except the trees. The trees are made with scrap cedar decking. The board is 1″ thick. You can make trees out of 2x4s just fine, though too.

We cut the buildings and trees using and a circular saw and a Carpenter’s Square, or Speed Square. Just draw shapes on the wood and then cut them out. These are very forgiving! We used toy matchbox cars to determine the size of the buildings.

For our little wood town play set we cut out the following buildings and trees:

• Hospital 5.5″ tall
• Fire Department 4″ tall
• Police Department 3″ tall
• Cafe 4.75″ tall
• Blue House (measured from the peak) 4.5″ tall
• Yellow House (measured form the peak) 3.75″ tall
• Small Triangle Tree 2.5″ wide x 3.5″ tall
• Large Triangle Tree 3.5″ wide x 3.5″ tall

Once all of your buildings and trees are cut out, use sandpaper or a sanding block to sand the rough edges of the wood. Wipe dust gently away with a soft cloth.

On a protected surface, like wax paper, paint your buildings. Use a high or semi-gloss multi-surface indoor/outdoor paint to paint the wooden play set. You will probably need 2 coats of color on each building.

Paint the tops and bottoms of the buildings black. Let dry completely.

Use a pencil to sketch any designs and lettering onto your buildings.

Paint all of the windows and doors black and let dry completely. Or use your own color idea, such as grey or white.

Use a white paint pen and other colors of paint pens to add details to your buildings such as lettering, shutters, flowers and landscaping. Sometimes the paint pen is thin/transparent, and requires you to go over it twice to get a nice opaque color. Just make sure it’s dry before you trace over it again.

To make the trees, paint all sides dark green and let dry.

Add a brown trunk in the center and lighter and darker green boughs to create some dimension with paint. Let dry completely.

When finished painting all of your buildings and trees, seal each building and tree with a coat of mod podge. Let dry completely.

Now you’re ready to play!