REFURBISHED SHED GIVES KIDS A PLAYHOUSE

Over the past month, Holly and Layne and Jordan Finnegan have watched the old shed in their grandmother's back yard turning into the summer playhouse of a child's dreams.

The architect of this dream is artisan Tim Roth, who used to own an art gallery in Cape Girardeau.

"Mr. Magic," the children call him.

"I'm like their best friend now," Roth says.

Their grandmother, Dr. Jennie Cooper, turned Roth loose on her shed with orders to "take that thing and make it into the most wonderful thing a kid has seen."

The 10-by-15-foot shed was dark inside, not a place grandchildren liked to go. First he had to clear out the bees that had made the shed their home. Then he began putting in windows and painted the faded green exterior yellow.

Roth spent less than $200 on paint and hardware, building shelves from an old dresser Cooper had and transforming a lattice on the back of the shed into a fence for the playhouse. "She either had it or I had it," Roth said. "We were just using odds and ends."

He put a big heart in the middle of the entryway.

Holly, 2, Layne, 5, and Jordan, 8, live in Jackson but dropped by frequently to provide him with advice.

Holly wanted a mailbox. Done. Jordan wanted a peephole in the door. He also wanted a stage for puppet shows because he's "a bit of a ham," Cooper says.

There's also a secret hiding hole for those times when a kid just doesn't want to be seen.

One of the girls "wanted lots of purple," Roth said. There is lots of purple inside, but many, many other colors as well.

They wanted bunks for bunking parties. And a bulletin board for messages.

Everything is made of wood, not plastic.

Roth had ideas himself.

"I listened to the kids and being immature myself helped," he laughed.

"There are a lot more options than restrictions."

A groundhog living under the playhouse doesn't seem to mind the new boarders.

Cooper, an English professor at Southeast Missouri State University, likes being in the playhouse herself. "It's like going back to my childhood to go there," she says.

"The best thing is it makes me happy to look in the back yard," she said.

Now she's on the lookout for playhouse furniture. Nothing in plastic.

The children's' mother, Annie, kids her own mother about how long the playhouse idea took to occur to her.

"We didn't have one," she said. "We just had an old green shed."

The children have Sunday dinner at Cooper's house every week. "All three of the kids choke their food down so they can go out to the playhouse," Cooper said.

They're planning an open house Sept. 4. The grandchildren are rehearsing a play to be performed in the playhouse. Cooper's tenant Megwyn Sanders, a Southeast theater major, is directing.

"Mr. Magic" will be the guest of honor.