One WordPress Install, Two Categories. Each Category Gets a Domain

Ok here is a setup I am aiming for, hopefully someone knows how to get me there:

• One WordPress Install on www.mainsite.com
• www.mainsite.com will be a landing page that points to two Category links: Work, Play
• Work Category defaults to domain www.worklife.com
• Play Category defaults to www.play.mainsite.com
• Any other WordPress Pages will maintain www.mainsite.com as domain (ex. www.mainsite.com/contact)

Right now the old blog resides on worklife.com, so I am hoping to prevent the URLs of individual postings from changing (ex. www.worklife.com/2010/01/01/post) as I migrate the install to mainsite.com

For now, I have built the site, and all of the loops and pages are functioning correctly. The only thing left to do is get the domains to play nice so I can make the move.

All of my research keeps pointing me towards creating a network, but I’m hoping there is a way to keep it all running on a single install.

Can it be done?

Did you check out WordPress’ Multisite feature? Simply put, it allows you to create a network of sites under different sub-directories, sub-domains, or domains. As with your case, each site in the network can work like a category.