My Special Project to Build Wonderful Memories

I have been wanting to share a special project that I finally finished the week before Christmas. I had some "play" furniture (table/4 chairs, refrigerator, crib, buffet, high chair) that my dad built for me as a Christmas present in 1960, when I was 3 years old. It was just built out of scraps and left over paint. I LOVED playing "house." Since Hannah is turning three at the end of January, I wanted to fix it up and pass it on to her. This furniture has made 9 moves, including 1 from Texas to North Carolina and 1 from North Carolina to Louisiana. So, it's been through a lot! Here's the "before" picture after we set it out in our garage to repaint. I had a lot of repairs to make to it also.



I wanted to color it with "fun" colors for Hannah and Lydia, so I used the crayon colors of blue, red, yellow, and green. The theme is dogs because Hannah loves to play "puppy dog." She has always been fascinated with dogs. Her first word was "ruff" when she would see our little dog.

We only had one huge problem. Where were we going to put the furniture since we have downsized. My husband had a brilliant idea. He asked his brother-in-law to built a playhouse for her. We have plenty of room in our fenced in back yard.

Here are pictures of the playhouse.




My husband insisted that it look like a real little house, with a welcome flag and mat.

Here's the inside of the little house. Since these pictures, I have put up "dog" curtains.

This is the living room area with a bean bag chair.







Some of the play food and dishes were the ones that I played with 54 years ago!! Most of the food is what my daughter played with 30 years ago!!

It was a surprise for all of them. Angela kept wondering where I was going to put all of the play furniture. She knew I was repainting it, but I wouldn't let her see it. I just told her that if I had to move out my sofa that I would--that it was more important to make memories with the girls. We invited them the Saturday before Christmas. They knew we wanted to show them something, but they thought we had had someone put together a nice wooden swing set. They were shocked and so happy when they saw it.

We have already had SO much fun playing in their playhouse. It will be fun to see how long the little girls (and boys if we have any) of future family generations will play with this furniture.