Playhouse DIY Transformation

My husband and I had been talking for a while about building our girls a custom playhouse. We had some grand plans and a pretty awesome Pinterest board to go along with it but that ladies & gentlemen is where it stopped. Does anyone ever really have time to turn all those Pinterest dreams into reality? Anyhow one Saturday morning I was scrolling my Facebook feed and there was a post in one of the mom groups that this mom had a playhouse she was getting rid of for FREE. All you had to do was come pick it up. Say what? There was like 20 other peeps before me but what the heck I messaged her anyway. Luck musta been on my side because she said its all yours! Say what? So off the hubbs went in his handy dandy truck to scoop up my loot!  While daddy was gone the girls decided they wanted their very own bakery so they could bake mommy chocolate cakes all day long. Sweet! One amazing bakery coming right up! Look at her though, she was a sad little thing wasn’t she? Dirty & dingy with her roof on backwards lookin like a hot mess. All she needed was a little love!Take a look at some of the before pics of just how sad she was.  Peek a boo! So now that you’ve seen all her trouble areas, lets get to work! We had to take her apart so that we could fix a couple slats, tighten some things up and give her a good cleaning.  Off comes the roof and out comes the power tools.  Everyone hard at work while I’m sittin back sippin my lemonade taking pics. That’s the way to do these DIY projects! Gotta label & keep everything organized once you take it apart or it will never go back together right so he says. Can you read my husbands chicken scratch? Cause I can’t…
Slacker. Now that everything was taken apart it was time to put in some serious work. I had to sand every panel of the playhouse, every piece of trim, every everything! This was months ago and I think my arms are still numb from the vibration. Dewalt is my husbands tool of choice so Dewalt if you’re reading this send me some free tools to give to my husband! Maybe then he’ll let me take on another project. 🙂 I used a 220 grit sandpaper to start with then when all was said and done I went back with a finer grit to make it all really smooth.  See look, proof that I actually did do some work. I told my husband to get my good side. Apparently the side where you can’t see my face is my good side.  After I sanded the entire bottom structure inside and out I had to start on the roof. Approx 900 hours later all was complete. Look how sunny it was. It was a whole nother day. Maybe even a whole nother week cause that took forever! I hosed her down and gave her a good cleaning and she was finally ready to paint.
Behr is my paint choice for all my projects available at Home Depot. Their ultra pure white makes everything look so fresh & so clean clean… To make the painting go faster we used an airless sprayer for all the trim.  Apparently right about this time I was fed up with this project because I stopped taking photos and just wanted to get it done. So just know I spent the next few days painting, retouching, painting, retouching, & painting some more. Fast forward about a week and the playhouse was painted and the roof was stained a beautiful dark Kona color. The bakery needed a floor so we measured and cut a sheet of plywood to slip right into the bottom like a glove. I had to break out my handy power sander again and make the floor nice and smooth and then yes I had to paint again. I went with Behr brand in a Lavender Cloud color and of course added some glitter to make it sparkle. This silver dust is made by Valspar and comes in silver or gold. I found it at Target.
Just pour it in,  give it a good stir then watch your paint shine!  One handy little trick my husband taught me is to always run my new roller brush over some painters tape to get all the little fuzzies off so they don’t end up in your paint. He’s so handy to have around!So that was that for the painting portion. She was finally complete on the outside so I could start making her pretty on the inside. Here’s a little reminder of the before:

Drum roll please….

And now the after! The biggest time suck in the history of ever but oh so adorable. Our very own Whimsy Cakes Bakery!! For sure it needed its own mail box so we built this one using an old table leg that I of course had to sand and paint. It was never ending!!
I found some tablecloths on clearance at Target last spring and loved the print so I had my mom sew me up some custom curtains and a whole bunch of other cute stuff! Hedge by Lexy made me this custom two sided open sign. She has such beautiful embroidery designs so you should go check her out!  With leftover plywood from our floor I whipped up this cute little door mat using my Cricut machine.  Matching aprons of course! Thanks mama! Printable signs made by Just A Little Sparkle.  Leftover strawberry container turned Recipe holder. Go ahead, admit it, I’m a genius!  Can’t have a bakery without an oven so we made this custom oven to fit under the counter. There was a little confusion between me & the hubbs when it came to the measurements so it looks more like a fridge to me but hey we won’t go there because it’s a touchy subject. 🙂  I love it so much. Now I’m just over here waiting on my chocolate cake they promised me.

Stay tuned for my next post where I teamed up with Shindigz to throw the cutest Grand Opening Bakery party there ever was!