So, remember the arthritis-inducing playhouse?  And my commentary on the differences in probable appliance-color-choices between me and Martha?

This may be the most blatant statements of the obvious on record, but me and Martha?  Our differences extend way, way beyond color choices.

 Martha would have planned and built her playhouse using an original floorplan, with cheerfully-colored authentic wooden accents and built-in storage.

I am a working mom with questionable artistic talent.  I am generally aware of my own limitations.  So, when Harry began gravitating toward playhouses like he was caught in a tractor beam (my son knows the location of every playhouse display in every Sam’s Club and Toys ‘R Us in the central Arkansas area), I decided to do what every red-blooded working career mother does.  I threw my checkbook at the problem. 

Now, don’t think I got off as easily as it seems.  Finding a playhouse sufficiently masculine enough to suit my testosterone-charged husband’s requirements for his son was a challenge.  Nothing pastel and girly was going to cross the threshold of our backyard.   Boy-oriented playhouses are a rare breed.  And then I saw this:

Note that the smiling children in the playhouse are far too clean to be my son. 

I did my usual meticulous internet search to figure out the cheapest place to procure such a garden of boyhood delight, and ultimately took my wallet and my minivan to the Toys ‘R Us across the street.  After wincing at the hit to my budget, and a bit of wrestling and grunting, I managed to get the pieces into the van, home and into the garage (with some help from the hubbie -  I am suprisingly traditional when it comes to deferring jobs that require heavy lifting and sweating.)

And that was the moment that I chose to channel Martha. 

I stood in the garage, marveling at all the little details molded into the plastic walls, and I started thinking that the large expanses of beige were, well, rather beige.   Uninteresting.  Bland.  Which is (not so unsurprising) too close to Blah for me, the woman that painted her son’s ceiling bright turquoise (it’s a gabled ceiling – that’s a LOT of turquoise).   And then I remembered reading in one of the reviews where one woman thought a touch of paint would liven the walls up a bit.

A. Touch. Of. Paint.

Well, even I could do a little paint.  A splash of blue and green here and there wouldn’t require too much effort, and, after all, I had the mother-in-law for the weekend.  She’s artsy.  And craftsy even.

So we bought a strip of acrylic colors and some cheap paintbrushes and tackled the fine art of accenting.  At the end of about an hour, it was starting to look pretty good.  Pretty good.  But I was feeling a little, um, limited. 

 When my mother-in-law left, the disembodied walls were still leaning in my living room, waiting for me to go to the local craft megastore to buy “just a few more colors.”  And maybe some “clear topcoat.”  Make it last longer.  And, well, while I am there, don’t some of the fancier, girl’s playhouses have lights that light and doorbells that ring?  Wouldn’t that be a bit more interactive?  A bit more fun?  A wireless doorbell and a taplight found their way into the cart.

And thus began my two week adventure in playhouse pimping, culminating in the spine-collapsing-arthritis-inducing-screw-setting climax I spoke of last week.     And while I am not entirely certain the results reflect the virtual orgy of craftiness that preceded it,  I have to say, it ain’t too damned bad:

Note the nifty doorbell chime installed on the inside back wall.  Do not, I repeat, do NOT be inside the playhouse when Harry rings the bell.  If you value your hearing, that is.

Okay, while noting the nifty doorbell, ignore the fact that the only thing I managed to “accent” on the back wall was one lonely flowerpot.  My moments of creativity have their limits.  Smacking my shins against disembodied wall panels for the fiftieth time in three days pretty  much defines that limit.

So, what do you think?  Am I ready for prime-time?

“This Old Playhouse?”

“Martha-izing for the Rest of Us?”

“While You Were Out (At Daycare)?”

“Wal-Mart Chic?”

“PlayGround Force?”