Swiss Family Robinson

They lived in a tree house. Most of our week has revolved around our tree house. It's a very loose tie, but there is a connection! We have an ugly (UGLY) tree house in our back yard. Well, let's say we used to have an ugly tree house in our back yard. Now we have an ugly shack:
This beauty used to be the second story of our tree house, underneath was a little garden shed. There was a wooden ladder so you could climb up and the porch had railings all the way around. This 8th World Wonder is insulated, has electricity and even a window. The roof on it is newer than the roof on our house!

From day one I have said "that sucker is coming down!" We have no need for the Taj Mahal of tree houses in our back yard, so Travis got his brain working on this little project. By some engineering feat, he managed to knock down the bottom half with the top remaining in one piece. How he did this, I have no clue. Houdini doesn't reveal his secrets.

Now you're thinking, why wouldn't you just knock all of it down? Well my friends, my dear husband wants to sell it. Like as a playhouse. This is conceivable, no? It would make a very cute little girl's dreams of playing house or school come true. And she could even play in it during the winter! Obviously though, not in it's current conditions. The little bit of sun bleached pink (which used to be Pepto Pink) is probably not enough to convince a naive little 8 year old that this is her own barbie dream house. So off to Lowe's we went to take a gander at their "oops" paint.

We found lots of gray, and lots of wood varnish, but nothing that we really could use to cover this bad boy up. Then we wandered over to the builder grade paint section - you know, cheap but does the trick? Right next to that is a whole "Barn Paint" section. Perfect! The only setback here is our limited color choice: Red, Green, or White. I guess barns don't really come in a whole lot of colors unless you're going the Morton route. Lowe's only had red and white in an acrylic based paint that does not require a primer - so guess what we picked?

Our progress so far:
Just a little more trim painting with the white, put the railings back up, and we'll be all done! Then all we have to do is sell it! Good thing Travis is on a little vacation so he can devote all his time to this project. I sure hope it's worth it!