Playhouse

Hi!

Today was the closing for VBS.  It was a busy week!

So, we got the playhouse moved and situated. It went from here

Over to here.

With the playhouse over here, the yard seems much bigger.

The weeds have taken over where the playhouse used to be.  

I planted grass seed, but it didn't seem to take- maybe it's too old?

And I tried to fill in where the old garden used to be and seed it with grass, but we still have lettuce growing there!

(The lettuce is that light green at the bottom of the pic!)

Enjoy your weekend! :-)

Front Porch Gable/Ceiling Styles Plus Playhouse Progress

Now that the bottom half of the front porch is getting done,

 it's time for the top part of the porch.  

Here are some inspiration photos.

From here

From here

From here

From here

As you can see, I'd like an arch on top! :-)

Oh, and guess what I did?  I painted 1/2 the porch rails without primer!  Oh, the horror!  For 1/2 of the porch (the left) I used the light blue paint+primer that I mentioned when we did the playhouse.  But then, I used it all up and started using the white paint+primer I had.  When I started using it, it seemed super thin compared to the blue, but I went on painting.  Well, it turns out, it was just Exterior Paint with no primer.  We'll see how it holds up.  I did about 3 coats.  I guess in a couple years I'll have to re-do it... Wah, wah!

In other news, we are moving the playhouse over towards the office.  You may have noticed this picture

in my post on Monday that the playhouse looks a bit crooked.  Well, it is! Because we were moving it.

Here's where it used to be.

Here it is mid-move.

And here's where it's gonna end up.  About where that white storm door is on the ground in the background.

Notice that tall plant in the garden?  It's spinach that grew from seeds from last years' spinach.  I also got lettuce to grow that way. I always find it interesting to see where things grow when you let them go to seed.  I never ate any of the spinach or lettuce from this year, I just enjoyed seeing them grow. 

 The playhouse is in a spot now that's leveled and C can play in it, but it still needs to be scooted over about 2 feet towards the office and back a bit.

In order to do this, I had to clear some of the old wild flower garden in front of the office. This is a picture from last year.

 The white flowers (that I guess are perennial as they seem to grow in the same place every year) are staying, but I transplanted some pretty flowers over to the fence behind where the playhouse used to go.

The rest of the dirt, where our junk used to be by the fence and where the playhouse used to be,  I've planted with grass seed.

I also leveled out a little hill of dirt by the corner of the office.

And I pulled up the random spinach and lettuce from the garden. It didn't do that great there and we're not really having a garden this year.

Plus, I moved some of the junk behind the playhouse over to the side of the office to consolidate our junk.

(Man, we have a lot of junk!)
Here's a picture from the front, back in May.


Now I've just got one more area of screen doors/ windows/plywood junk over on the pond side fence.

(See the white daisies? :-))
We want to move that fence forward (in the fall?) and use the windows in the treehouse, so I may leave that there for now.

My MIL got the Magnetic Screen Door (as seen on tv) for the playhouse door.

The other screen we were using was a bit cumbersome as you had to velcro it shut.

That's all the junky news for now!  Have a great weekend! :-)

P.S.
Here are some pics of C when we went for our bike ride on Wednesday.  It was fun!

Riding the bike trail by the Summerside Harbour.

Using the exercise equipment.

The view at the end of the trail!

:-)

Paint, Paint and more Paint

Hi!

Summer has gotten off to a great productive start.  N is at camp this week, so C decided to paint the playhouse.  Here's how it looked before.  

It came to us a barn red (maybe 6 years ago) and I spruced it up with some leftover paint from our old red front door.  

Here's how it looked inside.  There's a broken green chair and a yellow chair and plastic patio table on the back left side.

Here's looking up to the little loft on the front left.

The right front side.

And a kitchen set on the right back.

 Plus, I stored the fire pit in there last winter and there was soot, dirt, spiders, etc.  Yuck. 

I cleaned it up, put screens on the windows, made little curtains from leftover fabric, and put in the leftover vinyl flooring from our bathroom.  C put a little bed out there. Here's how it looks inside now.

This is the left back.

  Left front.

 Right back.

 Right front.

C picked a super bright green to paint the outside (CIL Ext. Latex Satin with built in primer- Crayon Green from Canadian Tire) and had a friend over to help her start painting.

We bought 1 quart of paint because I remembered that's how much we had for the door, but the back never got done.  I figured that would be enough paint for the front and the sides and we'd just do the back another color.

However, it became apparent that bright green over dark red, would need more than one coat.  In order to stretch the paint I added white.  C was very upset about this because you can see below on the side, it turned out yellow.

(See all the junk in the yard?  That all came from inside the playhouse!)

So, since Tuesday was a holiday- Happy Canada Day!- we waited til Wednesday to go back to the store to get another can of paint.  I only wish I'd thought this thru because I could've used some old exterior light blue paint + primer for the base coat and then I think we could've gotten away with one quart.  

Here's how it's looking with the 2nd coat on the front. 

Here's a close-up of the window screen.

So, what else did I paint?  The breezeway windows! (They also got caulked.)

Here's the before.

And the way before.

I like how the breezeway windows sorta match the windows and door on the back of the house. 

Should I put window boxes under the breezeway windows? 

Notice we have the pool out.  We're thinking we might need a bigger one!  It's been really hot the last few days- up to 29C (85F) with a humidex of 36C (97F).

  Meanwhile, in the front there's more painting going on!

I touched up the shed trim.

Here's how it looked before.

Then I decided to go ahead and paint the front trim (? Is that what you call the rails, spindles, etc?).

Anyway, because I had a shellac based primer to seal knots, I started with that.  Here is the spotty primer look.

 I also caulked the seams on the corner posts. 

Here's how it looks all painted.

And here's how it looked last fall!

Much more welcoming now!

Lotsa painting going on!!  Enjoy the rest of your week! :-)