It seems like the craze these summer days all over Instagram and Pinterest is the ‘playhouse hack makeover’! Once I laid my eyes on these cute little houses I knew I had to jump on board and create one for Miss Lace!

The biggest question I kept getting asked while I was posting my progress on Instagram is where we bought ours from. I bought this version through Walmart USA because it was the cheapest at the time but it has since sold out. A bunch of places sell it or ones similar so I’ve linked a few through my Instagram post with the @liketoknowit app for anyone wanting to get one.

It came in brown cedar so the obvious first step was to give it a white paint job! We decided to assemble the house first (minus the roof) and then paint it. It took three coats of white on all the walls to get it to look good both on the inside and out. For the roof exterior, I did four coats to get it to look pure white and did only two on the inside, as I knew the inside wouldn’t be very visible. The windows and flower pot holders already came white so that didn’t require any work. The chimney was brown so we needed to spray it in a white exterior spray paint. I couldn’t decide what colour I should paint the door for a long time before I finally settled on a gender neutral, turquoise. It’s called Rio Sky by Behr Paint and was purchased from Home Depot.

We swapped out the door handle for a gold one and added a gold number 2 (for the amount of kids we have) to the outside of the door. I bought the door mat from Ikea and had my sister-in-law paint the word ‘Welcome’ on it in white paint. She also painted the words ‘Open’ and ‘Closed’ on the hanging wood sign which I bought at Dollarama and painted white first. The menu sign I also bought at Dollarama and painted it in the Rio Sky colour. The wood rocking chair is from Michaels and was also painted in Rio Sky. The metal ‘Home Sweet Home’ sign I found at Dollarama along with the little wood house shelf inside which I painted in Rio Sky. The letter “E” hook I purchased from Anthropologie and the gold bell was a Homesense find. The plastic stool, white flower pots, white lantern and turquoise watering can were all from Ikea. We also bought the white picnic table from Ikea last year which came with a brown stain on it. It didn’t hold up well under our deck over winter and the stain was peeling off when we took it out this summer. I sanded it down and painted it white (3 coats on the top and 2 on the bottom) and love how it looks! This winter we will be wise enough to cover it or put it in the garage! The deck was built by my husband and was also given two coats of white paint. The picnic basket is by Olli Ella (I’ve linked some by them on my Instagram) and the tea set was part of a large kitchen set we bought at Costco a few Christmases ago. The curtains and mobile I made from old material I had laying around back from my August Lace Designs days.

It was a fun project to do and I loved being able to put my personal touch on everything. In hindsight, like other bloggers have reported (and I should have listened!) use a spray gun if you have access to one to paint the house. Painting it by hand was definitely a labour of love and it took us about three weeks to get it all done. The hubby and I spent many evenings in the garage together after the kids went to bed, painting; a trade off to our typical choice for date night. 😉

We technically gave the playhouse to Miss Lace for her birthday as an early gift and she ADORES it! She is so proud to show it off to anyone who comes over and has been playing in it lots. She loves to play alone but she loves it even more when she has her little friends over to play in it with her. Watching them cook and serve each other is the cutest! I can’t wait for baby brother to be able to walk and join her inside!