Don’t be selfish . . .
I have been wanting to find a little playhouse on Craigslist for Elora to play in while I garden, mow and weed. But after finally scoring one for $100, and setting it up in the backyard, I just couldn’t leave it as it was. The colors were all wrong and the inside was drab. Nothing a little spray paint couldn’t fix 
I used spray paint made for plastics – I changed brands up a lot. The copper over the bay window was just a metal finish spray paint and it has held up GREAT!
I used poster board and cardboard to block as I painted.
I built a wooden platform for the house to sit on, allowing for the little front porch.
Sorry that I didn’t take pictures as I went a long. But here are some from the final product.
The inside was the same color as the exterior walls. So, I started by spraying the walls yellow, the trim and ceiling cream and the wainscoting blue. The yellow was looking real bad even after three coats. To help disguise the problem I sprayed cream with a stencil and just didn’t worry about lining it all up.
The playhouse was missing the little chair that comes with it when purchased new for $400-$500. Getting it for $100 was worth not having the chair. I was really lucky when I found two classroom chairs for $2 each at the Thrift store. One was blue and the other yellow. (the same colors I used on the walls!) So I used the same little stencil and sprayed the chairs with the opposite color to make them cohesive and cute!
The little kitchen had lost all of the original stickers and was all one color. So I just brushed on a little interest with my paints.
My little one just loves her house!
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Don’t be selfish . . .
I think that the paint would have held better if I had sanded first, or at least had done a better job cleaning it. I am notorious for cutting corners.
The best paint was rust-oleum 2x ultra cover and krylon fusion for plastic.
We live in Colorado and our winters/hail and extreme sun could be why mine didn’t work on the outside as well as I had hoped. But it did make it through two winters before the paint really flaked bad.
The wood platform was 2×6’s that I already had. 2×4’s would probably be cheaper and still work great.
My best money saving tip is to get your wood from craigslist ads where people are tossing leftover lumber in the free section or even more reliable is to find a materials resale store. We have a habitat for humanity building resale store in our town and I get all kinds of great materials for fun projects from there.
Good luck and let me know how it turns out.
I just bought the same playhouse for my little girl! Do you mind sharing which brand paints held up well & which to stay away from? How many cans did you end up needing?
Also, how did you build the wood platform? Any tricks or money-saving ideas there?
Your house is adorable!!! Thanks for sharing!
UPDATE: The Paint is chipping! only on the outside and some areas more then others. i will update the whole post with how I deal with this problem.