Sunday 22 July 2012

Ethan's summerhouse.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back at Christmas time, we decided to earmark any money Ethan received to go towards a little wooden summerhouse for him.  We bought the house shortly after Christmas because the website I had discovered, Garden Buildings Direct were having a sale.  The house came flat packed and we hid it away in our main summerhouse/shed ready to build in the spring when we hoped it would be dry.

Well... you know what the weather's been like so far this year.  Apart from a very random (and misleading) spate of hot weather at the end of Feb/beginning of March and the odd day here and there, we've not had much reliable summerhouse building weather.  As a result, getting Ethan's house built, painted, decorated etc has been a loooooooooooooooong process.  We are finally there though, so I thought I would share a few pictures with you.  We're pretty proud of the result.  There are still a couple of tiny touches - I'm planning on doing a couple of paintings of Meg & Mog and Dipdap to go in there for Ethan when I get the time, but apart from that, it's all done.

Pete has done the hard work.  I have to say that although we love the finished house (and Ethan adores it) there were a few things we weren't entirely happy with.  The quality of some of the materials wasn't as good as we were expecting - some of the wood was warped out of shape a little.  It's all together, and it's watertight, but not without some extra work by Pete - he's used sealant around the windows to stop water getting in - this isn't mentioned in the instructions and none is supplied, but if Pete hadn't done this, Ethan's house would get a regular soaking!  However, when all is said and done, it's a lovely little house and we are happy with it.

It was May when we started:

Ethan "helped" to paint..




Who am I kidding.. Ethan did most of the work really..

Coming together...
Pete got the windows in in time for the Jubilee, but much of the inside painting still needed to be done.  It wasn't easy with the bad weather...


Let me now unveil to you Ethan's (pretty much) finished house:





What do you think?  He's a lucky little man, isn't he!  Pete painted the inside white, all apart from one section  which he painted with magnetic blackboard paint (fantastic stuff for fun DIY projects - when Ethan is older we'll paint a section of his bedroom wall with it - if we did it now, I think he'd get carried away and chalk all over the whole room!).  We already had the table and chair.  We had some left over carpet tiles from when Pete carpeted the garage so they got used.  We got some sensor operated LED lights from Ikea to go on the ceiling.  I had the battery fairy lights hanging around not being used.  I got the bunting on eBay.  One day, I'll get myself a sewing machine so I can knock up my own bunting!

Pete and I both agree, we would have loved something like this when we were children!  

8 comments:

  1. OMG - I absolutely LOVE this, wow wow wow! Seriously, I want one for Little M. it is soooooo cute, amazingly decorated and it's every kids' dream to have their own little house. Well done!

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    1. Thanks Maria - Pete did most of the hard work! M would love one of his own, I'm sure! Ethan loves to dash in and out of it saying "I'll be back in a minute, I'm just popping in my house!" x

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  2. This is so gorgeous! I want one. You have decked it out with the greatest of tastes - I would expect nothing less. Tell me, do you go and sit in there sometimes, with wine?

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    1. I do sometimes go and sit in there, yes...! Not taken any wine in there yet, but that's a good idea! x

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  3. I seriously want a grown up version all my own now! I love it! :D

    Rach
    www.theawesomelady.blogspot.com

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    1. I'd love a grown up one as well!! Our main sumerhouse is more of a shed really, filled with the lawnmower etc.. so not somewhere you want to hang out! x

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  4. I see Pete is having "mocs-in-crocs"...

    Love seeing somebody else besides me using Moccis the way I do. They sure are comfortable!

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