During our time of social distancing/self isolation I did a lot of scrolling through Pinterest in hopes to find some inspiration for a creative project that could keep me busy and feeling productive and less like someone on house arrest. I was served several pins that were geared towards organization and general toddler crafts. Those looked expensive or messy, neither of which were top of mind for me. 

Then I came across these images and knew I needed to start hunting for a used plastic playhouse. 

However, I didn't need to look far... I forgot, my mom had purchased a used one almost a year ago that she let us transform. Here she is in all her original glory. 

Now to begin the deconstruction and renovation of this little gem. Here are the steps we took from start to finish with some progress photos and as many links as I could find on the products we used to make this cottage shine! 

*Please note before you start if the house has been unused or sparsely used you should check the inside roof and eaves of the roof inside and outside to be sure there aren't any bee hives. Ours actually had a very small bee hive starting in one of the eaves! Grandpa to the rescue!

We took the door, shutters, roof, and accessory pieces off and then separated the walls out one-by-one. Accessory pieces with this house included clock dials, door knob, phone holder, fold down stove with dials. 

We then gave her a good spray down with the pressure washer and let her dry for 24 hours before we began any painting. We used Rust-oleum 2x Spray Paint, make sure you are purchasing the kind that is states it's suitable to adhere to plastic! Most areas got 2 coats of spray paint for good measure, high traffic or high touch points got 4 coats (i.e. the shutters, door, threshold, fold down stove top). We then sealed those high traffic/high touch spots with a Rust-oleum 2x Matte Sealant Spray (again making sure we purchased the one suitable for plastic). 

We purchased our Spray Paint from the Bill's Ace Hardware our local Osceola hardware store. Now it the time to support small, local businesses if you can. The colors we used were:

Body: Blossom White https://www.acehardware.com/departments/paint-and-supplies/spray-paint/hobby/1396076

Roof: Granite https://www.acehardware.com/departments/paint-and-supplies/spray-paint/hobby/1514017

Shutters: Black https://www.acehardware.com/departments/paint-and-supplies/spray-paint/hobby/1396084

Door: French Lilac https://www.acehardware.com/departments/paint-and-supplies/spray-paint/hobby/1514025

Sealant: https://www.acehardware.com/departments/paint-and-supplies/spray-paint/hobby/1395839 

Here are some in progress photos we took. It was cold and windy the day we decided to start painting so we utilized my parents enclosed pole barn to do our painting. We laid our pieces down on large scraps of cardboard to keep them from getting dirty again from the dirt floor in this area of the shed. Make sure you keep your area ventilated when spray painting, we kept the large garage door open. You can see we did in fact take each wall down and spray them separately... 

Once we had everything painted with multiple coats and sealed in the areas we deemed were high traffic / high touch we were able to pop all the pieces back into place. Then came the fun part.... decorating / accessorizing. 

I do not get any kickbacks or rewards for sharing these products / links I'm just happy to share what worked for us and our playhouse renovation. That being said, here are a few links for the items I purchased to "spruce" up the playhouse. See the final results in the photo at the end!

We added fire numbers to the front of the house, these were found at the dollar spot at Target a couple months ago. We were able to buy them as a single number but I found them online as a pack of 10: https://www.target.com/p/10pc-metal-numbers-bullseye-39-s-playground-8482/-/A-76612509

I added a faux leaf garland under the front eave of the house: https://www.target.com/p/greenery-garland-spritz-8482/-/A-77332722

We also added a faux tulip wreath on the door (secured with a command hook): https://www.target.com/p/12-34-artificial-mini-tulip-wreath-pink-green-threshold-8482/-/A-76548128

A small faux fig plant added a nice touch to the front of the house as well, though Scarlett continues to carry it in and out to make sure it gets the proper sunlight: https://www.target.com/p/14-5-x-10-artificial-fiddle-leaf-fig-in-ceramic-pot-green-white-threshold-8482/-/A-54159949

I layered a black and white gingham indoor/outdoor rug under the entire house (ours is the 5' x 6' 7" size, but they offer other sizes), found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TPS5C48/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Along with a small doormat found again at Target: https://www.target.com/p/1-39-6-34-x-2-39-6-34-half-cirlce-door-mat-floral-green-opalhouse-8482/-/A-76387282

This playhouse was never equip with a doorbell of any kind and it's something the kids love doing when they visit their Grandma so we found a wireless one we were able to mount on the front near the door and the bell mounts to the inside of the playhouse: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I1ASTE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I did not see this being the hit it was with Scarlett... I didn't want our current kitchen set/food taken outside to get ruined so I found this all plastic set on Amazon to leave outside in a plastic storage tote when not in use: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SR92JFS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The original playhouse had a cracked / broken plastic skylight in the roof so my husband removed that and he built a faux chimney and bolted it into the roof with a piece of plastic covering the opening so it doesn't rain in on them. 

Without further ado here are the final photos! We hope this helped spur your own playhouse renovation ideas. Feel free to ask any questions and we'd love to see your playhouse renovations that you tackle! We even bought a second used plastic house to redo and bring to the other Grandma's house, so we'll share more photos of that one once we "break ground" on it!