Painting is fun...When you're all DONE.

I've wanted a playhouse for Ally forever, probably before she even born. My grandma and mom have told me since I was little about their granny's playouse they played in as kids. I love them. It's so fun to go inside and play, and let imaginations take over.

Every year I resist the urge to buy the $299 playhouse from Costco they sell each spring. It's cute but the roof is plastic (and fades) and once you grow beyond 4 ft tall, you won't fit inside. I thought about finding someone to build Ally a playhouse but with the cost of lumber these days, I figured it would cost me thousands. I searched Craigslist numerous times for someone who was selling a wood playhouse, something I could restore, but most searches resulted in those plastic Little Tykes kind...NOT the kind I was looking for.

One lucky day a couple of months ago I found a little wood playhouse a man was selling on Craigslist. It looked like it was in good shape, exactly what I was looking for. It just needed a little curb appeal. The man was so nice, he waited around for like six weeks for me to figure out how I was going to get the playhouse from his house to mine. I finally coordinated the move and the little house arrived two weekends ago.

I spent ALL of last week painting. I'm all about instant gratification so the week long project was hard for me. As soon as Hudson would go down for a nap, Ally and I would go out and paint. Ally didn't do any painting, but kept me company. We sang songs, told jokes, talked about how we would decorate her house, and little by little I slapped on 2 gallons of primer, stained the roof and porch, and painted the entire house. It felt like I was never going to finish. At one point I called Dan and told him if he came home and helped me I would do ANYTHING he wanted. (He was home 5 minutes later). Ha!

My friend Harv, who can do and make anything came over and helped me put windows in. There weren't any windows, just holes, so you wouldn't really be able to put anything inside without it getting wet when it rained. We sealed every imagineable place rain could possibly get in, so we should be good for the Washington rain that's coming. Harv is amazing, stuff that would take me days to do takes him seconds. I love the windows, I think they're my favorite part.

And let me just tell you, I saw the biggest spiders I've ever seen inside that house. I think the guy must have had it in the woods because those spiders were as big as my hand. I was scared every time I had to go inside, thinking a spider would fall on my head. But I shop vacc'd them out, went in with my broom each time, and if any spider came near me he got painted into the house. I haven't seen a spider since.

And of course, I took Before and After pics.

I love it!

Harv added a little loft area above the door, you can see it in the picture above. It was just open to the porch. Now there is a great spot for storage. Good idea mom!

Time to decorate :)