Refreshing the playhouse

I’ve always envied people who have a home with a lot of property surrounding it, especially if it involved gently rolling green hills, a hearty supply of colorful vegetation (including plenty of trees), and white wooden fences, stretching as far as you could see, and if you threw in an old red barn and a sparkling little lake, I would be quite near to calling it my “died and gone to heaven” place.

In reality, I live in a suburb of a fairly large city, smack dab in the middle of a desert, on a yard that barely qualifies as a quarter of an acre if you measure it with the generosity of a gardener at zucchini harvesting time.

I’ve thought of moving somewhere closer to my dream location.

I’ve thought about it a lot.

The trouble is that we live right in the middle of all our children, too.   Indeed, we are a gathering place for our family, who come by often, and we enjoy spending time with all of them.

We also have a lot of good friends and neighbors.  We’ve lived here forty-one years.

Also, we are old enough that our home is paid for.

(Who wants a new mortgage?)

We are needed in our church congregation, which sometimes struggles for strength.

We are close to good shopping, museums, and parks,

and mountain recreation is just a short drive away.

Have I convinced myself you why we aren’t moving yet?

Then there is the play house…

As the grands would proudly say, “Ta da!”

Here is our playhouse.

We would hate to leave it behind. 

It wouldn’t be easy (or affordable) to move it.

It was built by my husband, with a lot of love.

You can read more about it and see pictures of the inside by clicking on the link below.

link.

So, while we don’t have everything we desire and dream of in a home,  (and who does?) we are pretty lucky.

The play house was built in 2012 and has had some good wear and tear over the years.  The paint was chipping and the door had some bad weathering problems. 

It was time for a make-over.

We changed the siding color to white,  built a new door (which now opens out to give more indoor space and helps avoid chopping off grand kids’ heads with the top of the Dutch door),  added shutters, planter boxes, and a mail box.  We painted the door, trim, and shutters Catalina Blue by Benjamin Moore.  (Yes, Ken, I watched as you did all the work, so technically it does qualify as a “we”.)

I  also added my school banner, which was looking for a new home since I retired from school.

Here is the new look.

I love the new planter boxes Ken built.  The flowers were close-outs for $3.00 total!

We added a $12.00 Lowes mail box since we are into delivering “letters” right now.  Ken also painted the little  design white.  The gold color just didn’t look right.

The kids still love playing there.

Here are before and after pictures:

                  Before                                              After

So, even though I will miss the old blue “Grandma’s Sweater” paint on the front door, I like the new look, too.

And…

I’d probably never be able to take care of a bigger space anyway.

Guess that is what day-dreaming is for!

JoAnn

P.S.  Has your summer been unusually warm this year?  We are dying of heat!