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Another long time in the making post I know I am overdue to share on!!! Thanks for your patience, friends!

How It Started

My mom got this little “firehouse”/”store” playhouse for Conner in October 2014 when we bought our home we’re currently at. He was not yet two but was soon to be an older brother, and my mom surprised him with it for as an early Christmas gift. Our backyard was much different at the time – pretty much full of rocks and dirt so it was a blessing for him to have as it wasn’t much of a great place for a toddler to play.

For Christmas that year he also got a coordinating play car and thought it was the best thing ever. We put pavers down that next spring and we enjoyed plenty of time outside in between the hot months playing with the house and riding in the car. Once Cole was walking toward the end of that year, he joined in the fun with these things, too.

Both toys received a lot of love from 2014-2018. Around 2020, the boys had definitely outgrown them and Honey had taken an interest. I had seen some playhouse transformations on Pinterest and thought it was totally something we (C, haha) could get done for us. Of course between bringing a new baby home in January 2021 who had a lot of struggles in the very beginning with feeding and reflux, it wasn’t something that we checked off our list until the end of the year. Such is life, but it was SO worth the wait and outcome.

Prepping + Clean Off

The first thing we did was hose them down and clean off the excess dirt, bird poop, and other grime. Our sun in Arizona is extremely intense, so the stickers that we had put on both (that came with it) had been really warped and essentially plastered/painted on it at this point. We used essential oils and a Thieves all purpose cleaner to attempt scrubbing these off. This part was really difficult, I won’t sugarcoat it. Lots of elbow grease involved. The car DOES have some sticker parts that we just couldn’t get off no matter what, so it kind of is what it is.

Supplies

You definitely want to make sure you lay down some sort of paint tarp or plastic before spray painting. We recently had put down turf and we did not want to damage it. A lot of tutorials I had seen on Pinterest suggest taking the car/house apart, but we did not want to go that route.

C is also a pretty clean artist/worker so he managed to skip this part of the process, and it worked to our advantage because we didn’t need to wait for things to dry and then flip over and paint the other side. It still took about a month because of our schedules to fully complete (mostly working on weekends, which are still really busy for us – so some weekends it got worked on, and some it didn’t.) it probably wouldn’t take that long for you if you stick to working on it every couple days or so.

We did make sure to do at least 2 coats. We did not use a primer or sealant, so that might be something you want to do. It’s been a couple of months now and they’re looking pretty good still but only time will tell (I expect the paint to fade and perhaps even chip a bit during summer with our sun/heat here). My thought process in not is that it is an outdoor toy, and the elements can be a bit brutal no matter what. If it matters a lot to you, you can consider doing these steps or researching it.

Since revamping it, all of the kids (boys included) have taken an interest in these items again (of course…kids….am I right?! ;)) so they’re being played with more and more. They’re kids, they’re going to be a little tough on these things and I can’t babysit what happens to the PLAY house and car, and kind of take it for what it is. They’re meant to be played with and things will happen, so if you keep that in mind and don’t expect it to look in tip top shape at all times, it will be easier to live with the little chips (if that even happens). Just my perspective/two cents – coming from someone who is pretty particular about their things 😉 Don’t expect perfection.

Here’s the 3 colors we used – purchased on Amazon and Lowe’s (there’s a shortage of these too so that’s why we shopped both places). I think we used 1 can for the door, 3 cans for the roof, and probably 7 or 8 cans for the body.

Extra Touches

I found this cute rainbow doormat for it along with the house number (mine and C’s birthdays are 9/9 and 12/9, and sweet Honey Girl is 7/9 so “9” is kind of our family number why we went with that!). I’ve also seen some people get a little hanging doorbell which is super fun, too!

I’m excited to watch our girls (and even now, our boys again! haha) enjoy these and that they’re getting a second chance at life! We received them in 2014 and now 8 years later they’re still going strong, just with a little facelift! I expect the girls to continue to play with them for the next several years, and who knows… Maybe it will be passed onto their own kids one day!! Wouldn’t that be special? 🙂