Green Gables Playhouse
at Eeyore's Thistle Patch

"It just shows what can be done by begging Donald and Melody to sacrifice a Sunday; and Q, a few afternoons." - C, Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations at Eeyore's Thistle Patch

"That child is hard to understand in some respects. But I believe she'll turn out all right yet. And there's one thing certain, no home will ever be dull that she's in." - Marilla, Anne of Green Gables

I enjoyed the Anne of Green Gables book series as a pre-adolescent. Loving souls with tired ears likened my flights of fancy, melodramatics (i.e., Anne's rendition of The Lady of Shalott and The Highwayman ), verbosity, and vivid imagination to that of Anne Shirley, L.M. Montgomery's most famous heroine.

As an adult I enjoy the Wonderworks miniseries.

So much so I made a Green Gables Playhouse for my girls, which will transform into a Green Gables storage shed for me in about 2007 A.D.
The trick was fashioning an Arrow Storage Shed after Green Gables House in Cavendish on Prince Edward Island -- the farmhouse which inspired the setting for the Anne Shirley escapades.

Donald and Melody helped us put the storage shed up in one day. The rest took me nearly a year.

I, mostly, but sometimes with my other half, added windows, insulation, and painted it to make it Green Gablesque. Where's Debbie Travis when I needed her!

Fortunately, Friend Q , a Disney employee, came to help with Trompe l'oeil on the exterior.

She did such a good job painting our cat, Bill, in one of the faux windows, some people have thought it was really Bill.

Then they're embarrassed for having been caught thinking our indoor cat was standing in a FAKE window.

The other cat unfortunately turned out looking less like my late cat Filthy and more like my parents' aptly named Bad Kitty. The girls didn't like Bad Kitty, thus it distresses the girls that it's there.

The sleeper sofa is one my father made before I was born. Of late, it sat in the garage until we moved it here and frilly-fied it with linens from Leisl.

The doorknob for the front door is off a raggedy antique door I found at a salvage yard. Mom bought it for me.

Other things were free and rightly so: I lugged home a trashed dresser I found in the trash. I rebuilt/created drawers and painted it using a woodgrainer.

I took four onsale file cabinets and painted them to look like a fireplace. Still haven't done the logs and flames yet.

I painted the inside doors with chalkboard paint. I painted faux windows on the inside with the chalkboard paint too so the girls could draw whatever outdoor scene they wanted. The doorways were painted using a woodgrainer so it actually looks like wood close up.

The decorating scheme was the wild rose -- official flower of Alberta, Canada -- and tea sundries. The two real windows have butterflies etched into the glass. Curtain rods are held up by spoons. The curtains themselves have a tea cup motif. Tea bags were glued to the walls and ceiling then painted over.

The playhouse has a multiple electrical outlet hidden behind this picture. I took a photo of Montmartre's stairs and lampposts and computerized it to look like a Monet painting. The first outlet is strategically placed behind a lamp so that this lamppost style nightlight is incorporated into the picture. The other outlets are accessible under flaps in the laminated artwork. I keep setting this reproduction radio on the classical station and the girls keep rolling it over to the pop station next door. The teenage years gape below me...
Shelves were fashioned from moulding cut at an angle; Terra cotta pots from styrofoam cups cut in thirds and painted; Flowers played themselves. Helen gave me some teapot/teacup/knife/fork/spoon 3-D stencils. I made the shapes, glued them on strategically and painted them over.
The flower bed outside is planted with 'Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.' The antique roses on both sides of the porch arbor have clambered to the apex. Kilory insisted on a chimney so Santa could get in, so I made one on which to train 'Red Cascade' antique rose.

The Green Gables mailbox on the far side of the arbor houses my clippers, gloves, hand shovels, etc.
So with the help of Donald and Melody, Q, Habitat for Humanity 's Metroplex ReStore ("YOUR SOURCE FOR QUALITY NEW AND USED BUILDING AND REMODELING SUPPLIES" which I discovered in an inspiring article) , grandparent-hand-me-downs, Leisl-linens-hand-me-downs,and the local K-Mart closing sale, the girls have a nice Green Gablesque Playhouse. And in 2007 I'll have a nice Green Gablesque Shed. Which will go very nicely with our existing "Lake of Shining Waters."
Their " 'rillo PawPaw" declared it good enough to live in. A mockingbird agreed and set up house in a tea pot I'd planned to grow Blue Daze in...
"Men make plans and God laughs...Mothers make plans and God bellylaughs." -- my own version of the saying.

Now what shall I do next?

Another melodramatic carrot top to whom I've been compared

Thanks fer noticin' me.

To my AnnE tribute page

Track Woozle prints to Eeyore's Thistle Patch