Goodwill Finds!

I often browse at our local Goodwill, but rarely buy anything. I'm pretty picky what comes into our house and I rarely buy anything I wasn't looking for already. For example, I am currently looking for
1. Picture for our bedroom
2. A few lamps for various rooms in our house
3. Butcher block table top

Imagine my delight when I walked into Goodwill and found this delightful little oil painting that matched the colors in our bedroom perfectly! It's signed and dated 1983!
It's a bit brighter in person which I really like. Our room is a bit dark and had a lot of hand-me-down 70s furniture. The picture matches the style of the bedroom perfectly! I paid $8.00 for the oil painting.
Next, I found this lovely floor lamp with a fantastic milk glass shade. I love milk glass and buy milk glass serving bowls for daily use for serving food and displaying in our kitchen. The base is also pretty heavy in comparison to many of the floor lamps I find in thrift stores(or regular stores for that matter!). I paid $15.00 which is what our Goodwill charges for all floor lamps

This lamp is perfect for our bedroom as it provides a light source for us as soon as we enter into our room (there are no light switches).

And finally, I found this adorable little desk lamp. I've got a few ideas on where to use it, but for now, I'm still undecided.
I paid $4.00 for this little beauty.

Notice that my lamps were antiqued gold? I am so glad this color metal is coming back. While I like the chrome/pewter look that we've all seen in the last trend, it matched nothing I owned (unless you include our faucets). Yeah for old becoming new again!

The Playhouse Part 6: The Budget

Like all home projects, we set a budget for the playhouse project. I set the budget at $300.00 Sounds kind of expensive, doesn't it? I thought so, but dang, good quality exterior paint is expensive (and worth the extra $$ IMO).

So, here's the cost breakdown (rounded)


Exterior
Paint $74.00
Plants/Potting Soil: $66.00
Planters $25.00
Trellis $12.00
Furniture $28.00
Mulch: Free
Total Cost (Exterior ONLY) = $205.00

Interior
Primer $50.00
Exterior Paint $52.00
Deck Stain FREE (previously on hand)
Curtain Rods $3.00
Furniture: Free-(previously owned)
Accessories: Free-(previously owned)

Total Cost (Interior ONLY)= $105.00

Total Cost of BOTH Exterior + Interior =$310.00



One of the reasons it's taking us so long to update our lovely home is that we are slowly saving for all repairs and paying in cash (or check as is usually the case). Since we were already over budget by $10.00, we decided that the extra little touches like trim mouldings (or gingerbread), hooks and mailbox could just wait. The kids don't miss them, so why should I. Rest assured, as soon as we update the playhouse, I'll provide a new after picture.

Exterior Cost $205.00. Interior Cost $105.00. Years of fun and play for the kids, priceless.

The Playhouse Part 5: Painting and Decorating the Interior

Mr. A and Miss J.
You are invited to tea in The Playhouse.
Tea, strawberries and sweets to be served.
Come one, come all, come NOW!

Located at
The Playhouse
1443A Whitington Avenue
Xwwwww, XX, 55555
(Conveniently located in the backyard)

Hope to see you there!

This is the invitation the kids found stuck to the front door after lunch on Saturday. They cautiously made their way to our backyard. After a minute or two of looking around, they found the place!
Cautiously opening the doors, the kids found a delightful surprise-their very own playhouse! Come on in and have a look! As a reminder, this is what we started with.






















And here's the surprise that awaited the kids when they opened the doors!
Green tea, strawberries and black bean brownies, oh, my!


Storage shelf with helmets, their adored pillow pets and plenty of space to add their own little decorating touches (which they already started to fill).
Outdoor toy box that doubles as extra seating. Favorite stuffed animals, Teddy and Sprinkle joined the tea party too!












































The kids enjoy their afternoon tea. They were so excited, they didn't even eat the brownies!
Miss J takes it outside to enjoy a quiet cup of tea on their "patio".

Now, the kids are begging to take every meal out in their new clubhouse (their term) and to sleep there overnight. Too bad my less than youthful back refuses that treat. From the hours of silence hubby and I now have in the house, I'd say this project was a great success.

The Playhouse Part 4: Painting and Landscaping the Exterior

Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I decided to paint the exterior of the playhouse, the heat climbed to over 90 degrees. It's a good thing I love heat! After slathering on a ton of sunblock (because I burn and worry about wrinkles), and donning my painting cap, I tackled the exterior painting. My poor hubby isn't as heat tolerant, but still stepped up to help with the painting-thanks, Honey!

Two gallons of yellow and 1 pint of green paint later, and the exterior painting was done! I used the Valspar Duramax Semi-Gloss paint color matched to our house (called adobe cream by the siding manufacturer). Great paint. It was pretty expensive @ $37.99/gallon, but I understand it's excellent paint and we shouldn't have to repaint next year. While I was at it, I decided to finish the landscaping too.

Welcome to the new playhouse!
We added a hook and hanging basket on the right hand side of the doors and two barrels of flowers on either side of the doors. We wanted to be cautious of planting anything on either side of the doors just in case someone swung the doors a little too wide. We also added the address "1443A" above the doors.

On the right side of the house (side closest to our home), we turned the worm bin/yard compost into a vegetable garden. This little box contains 3 types of tomatoes and 2 types of peppers. I wanted to plant strawberries, but they are going out of season. Strawberries as also much more expensive then the vegetables plants! Having a garden for our kids is very important to us. We want them to see first hand where produce is grown. I have fond memories of picking fruit in the summer as a child and want my kids to have similar memories.

Directly next to the vegetable garden box is a little place to rest. We added two little green lounge chairs for relaxing and a metal and mosaic table for drinks. Behind the chairs, we added a trellis and a clematis plant. The clematis is still pretty small. Hopefully, it'll grow, grow grow this summer and be nice and full by summer's end. The trashcan next to the chairs is actually our potato experiment. We're growing potatoes in that can! And behind that bin is still our compost bin. This bin will stay since it's the only place in our yard that's appropriate (aka far enough from the house) for a compost bin.
On the left side of the playhouse, are the raspberry, blackberry and kiwi bushes. We just love going out to the yard and picking a few berries to sample! Don't you love the old clothes line pole? We only have one (left from the previous owners) and love using it for climbing plants. I think it's charming! You can also see one of the two windows here. I love the little green shutters. They are such a great little accent! The kids and I mulched the entire area from playhouse to fence for ease of access. My son is, at this very moment, planting sunflower seed along the edge of the house here. I cannot wait to see them grow!

We're still looking for running trim (or fretwork, or gingerbread) to go along the roof edge, but it's pretty tough to find. I also don't want to pay $60+ for a 4' section. It's only a playhouse for goodness sakes! I also want to add a small mailbox. I haven't found exactly what I'm looking for just yet. I'll find it eventually, I'm sure.

This run down little shed has come a long way, don't you think?


















Next week, I'll share the interior and how we surprised the kids (who had no idea we were turning the shed into a playhouse). The interior, in my humble opinion is the best part of this makeover!

LINKING UP!

The Playhouse Part 3: Painting the Interior

While hubby slaved away at repairing a few exterior boards, I worked on the interior of the playhouse. This involved painting, painting and more painting. Yup, this little shed needed to be primed and painted from top to bottom. And while I enjoy painting, I don't love to paint ceilings in 90 degree weather. Actually, I don't love painting ceilings in the best of conditions.
Our first step was to head to Lowe's where we bought a cart full of paint.

• 2 gallons of exterior primer (Valspar)


• 1 gallons of exterior paint in a lovely sky blue (Valspar)


• 1 gallons of exterior paint in white (Olympic)


• 1 pint of green paint for trim and door (Valspar)
  


• 1 gallon of exterior paint in pale yellow (Duramex Valspar)


• 4 rollers to apply the paint designed for exterior surfaces
  

Yes, that's six cans of paint! Luckily, there was a sale on Valspar paint ($10 discount for every $50 spent). Total cost was around $130.00. I can already see that this little project is going to not be cheap!

After thoroughly checking for interior damage, and finding none, I primed the interior of the shed.
Two evenings and about a gallon and a half of primer and I was done. This primer was very good and went on beautifully. I'm glad I finished this before before the weather hit 90 degrees. I love how much brighter the interior of the shed now looks.

Next, I painted the ceiling a lovely shad of light blue. Between the good primer and the regular flat exterior primer by Valspar, I only needed one coat of each and the ceiling was good to go. Can you tell I'm a fan of Valspar?


Note to self, do not do an arm workout the evening before you plan to paint a ceiling.

Then I moved onto the walls. I wanted to keep the light airy feeling, so I painted the walls white. Unfortunately, I had to paint two coats of white over the primer. I don't know why I bought Olympic paint, but I bet that if I had bought Valspar, I would have only needed one coat. What I do love is that I can still see the wood grain through the primer and paint.

Finally, I removed the drop cloth (which didn't seem to help at all) and decided I might as well power on and finish the floors as well. Instead of using the green as I had planned, I grabbed some leftover deck stain from our deck project last year. Yeah, it's bright red, but perfect for a playhouse! It's a Behr brand that worked very well (I also like Behr paint, but Lowe's is about 5 miles closer to our house, so I use Valspar more often).

After one quick coat of deck stain on the floor, this is what I was left with.

I love it! Now, the only thing left to do on the interior is adding furniture and accessorizing. I can't wait to add the little tables, hooks and curtains. Unfortunately, our next step will be painting the exterior. Stay tuned for that!

The Playhouse Part 2: The Glitch

Like every single project I start, the playhouse project also ended up with a glitch making this simple project not so simple (hence my blog title).

Enter the problem: water damaged boards on the exterior. Fortunately, the interior was in perfect shape. No water damage of any kind was evident.The damage looks worse than it actually is. Thank goodness for my wonderful hubby! He stepped into save the day (well, evening since it was after dinner).
For some crazy reason, hubby is wearing safety glasses, but no shoes while operating a saw. I asked him not to do this, but he ignores me. Hubby doesn't enjoy DIY home projects. So, I try very hard not to make suggestions or nag too much when he agrees to do unnecessary household projects.



Hopefully, this will be the only glitch in the playhouse project.

Playhouse Part 1

Despite that we have a to-do list full of home projects, I have ditched all those and started a new one. My husband is almost thrilled. We are turning our old shed into a play house for our kids! The kids are growing up so quickly that I want to get this done for them ASAP! Or maybe I just always wanted a play house of my own and am now living vicariously through my children. Does it really matter? In either case, the kids are getting a playhouse.

Here she is, in all of her glory, the soon-to-be playhouse!
Yeah, it's ugly, but very solid. It reminds me of our house when we first bought it. So, I know it had loads of cute potential! The shed originally housed our tools and yard equipment. However, we have half a garage that is more than big enough to contain these items.

To the right of the shed is a lovely box we use as a yard waste/worm bin. In the picture, you see a bunch of stuff piled up in it because we are cleaning the yard. There are two windows that unfortunately look out into the neighbors' yards. I would have loved to see some of those windows from our yard. And finally to the back of the shed is our compost bin. It'll have to stay here as it's the only place that makes sense for a compost bin in our yard.

The inside of the shed is pretty basic. It's unpainted plywood. Yeah, that's going to be so fun to paint.
As soon as it stops raining, I'm going to start my paint-a-thon of 2011. This puppy will easily take 6 gallons of paint, maybe more. Despite the work ahead, I am so excited. My kids are going to be thrilled. My son even started hinting around how great it would be if we would like the kids play in the shed like it was a little kid's house. I want to keep it a surprise, so I told him that it was for our gardening equipment.

So, what's the plan? I actually have two plans; one for the interior and one for the exterior.
Exterior
*Paint the shed pale yellow to match the house
*Paint the trim yellow and green to match the house
*Add an address sign
*Add landscaping (some strawberry plants, clematis on a trellis and two bushes)
*Add two little chairs and table to lounge around outside

Interior
*Prime ceiling and walls
*Paint ceiling blue, walls white (maybe) and floor green
*Add hooks to hand toys, coats, and bikes
*Bring in table, shelf and toy box (already own)
*Add a lovely little indoor/outdoor rug
*Add some cute curtains

I'll start on the interior first before we really start seeing 90 degree weather. Hopefully, the rain will let up for a few days and my husband and I can get started painting. I'm so excited for the kids, that I doubt I'll lose focus on this project any time soon!