Playhouse Makeover

In 2013 my mom sent me a link to a plastic playhouse revamp that used some specialty plastic spray paint.  It seemed like the best idea, so I scoured Craigslist and scored a LittleTykes playhouse.  I didn't want to set it up and then have to take it down a week later in order to spray paint it, so it sat in the garage for a bit.  It was also around this time that I found out I was pregnant and figured that spray painting was not the best activity for a little first trimester alien, so the playhouse was set up and the renovation was put on hold.

Someone was happy just to have a playhouse:

And so the playhouse sat in that spot for two solid years, but it has gotten a lot of use.

Summer 2014

Summer 2015

And so the time came for me to fix this thing up.  When we first put it down, the grass was all lush underneath and it was quite pleasant to hang out in there.  The next summer, the grass had dried up and weeds had started to grow in it.  This summer, the weeds went even more bonkers, I had to rid it of a tiny wasp nest, and the grass had disappeared and left a dirt floor, which often turned muddy after rain.

My mom was up in July for a week and I thought we would get to it then, but the only thing we did was choose spray paint.  The goal was to make this little playhouse into a mini replica of the main house:

I thought I would have to buy cans and cans of cream in order to brighten up the walls of the playhouse, but in the end, it was more economical to just scrub down the walls and be glad that the sun had bleached them from their original puke yellow.  That just left a door, the roof, and the shutters and the final result is fabulous!

Yay!  Look at that!  A perfect match!  I used one can of orange and three cans of gray for the four sets of shutters and the roof.  Not bad.  I hope to return the extra cans.

To solve the weed problem, I put down a layer of that weed prevention fabric.  That wasn't going to hold up to kiddo foot traffic, so, while looking at the rubber pavers, I found this under paver 2x3 sheet.  Two of those fit perfectly for the base.  No more weeds, no more mud!  It makes it a bit warmer in there -- the dirt floor really cooled it down.  

 I hope to add a line of edgers from the iron gate to the corner of the house and then from the other corner of the house to the garage.  I'm going to put some plants on the right and then a layer of mulch on the left so that they can get behind the back of the playhouse.  The edgers I plan to use are these, which I have used around the rest of my backyard flower garden:

This may not happen until next year, though.  

And what did the girls think?  

I'd say that they are pretty happy!