Tree house/play house designer Barbara Butler has such a lovely website, I thought you’d enjoy exploring it–like your own online jungle gym.

Butler designs elaborate playground environments for public use, as well as tree houses and play houses for the kids of the rich and famous (scroll down here to learn that “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” singer Bobby McFerrin was an early client). Here’s what she advises any do-it-yourself-ers who are setting up their own backyards for better scampering, swinging, and hanging around this spring. And here are the nontoxic paints and stains she uses to tint her fairybook structures. Butler strikes me as a woman who follows her bliss!

I found a sweet treehouse poem for you by David Anthony, who calls the treetop play space a “refuge when in doubt,” and a home of “personal awareness.” I’m confident that even today’s automated, high-tech kids light up when they spy one.