Focusing On Life 52 Weeks~ Week 16 ~ Take A Walk

This is the view through the front door

from the inside of what used to be our children's playhouse 

 turned garden shed.

I designed and decorated this old door to look like stained glass

using the lead lining in the tube and stained glass paints back in 1991.

You see, for the prompt this week we were told to take a walk.

So I did.

Down Memory Lane.

I did not realize at the time how difficult this walk would prove to be.

This past week we began the monumental task of cleaning out and tearing down this old shed.

As much as we hated to do it, the floor had rotted out after it had settled lower onto the ground and some of the trim boards and roofing and siding had bad areas too so we decided to order a new one to replace it.

But during the course of this week my emotions went the way of the demolition.

Upside down and inside out.

And I soon realized,

Nothing would ever replace it.

The year was 1991

the shed was original to our house

dirt floor ,open door, typical old outdoor tool shed.

We had covered the failing wood shingled roof with tin prior to this

and after building a larger outdoor storage barn/studio  the year before,

decided to convert this into a playhouse for our daughter

who had just turned 7. 

 Our son who was 2 at the time, would later get a fort of his own, complete with trap door.

We had salvaged the door from a renovation we had done on a rental house and cut it to size.

Ready for occupancy except for the front steps.

We planted some camellias in bright pink

and even added some pink gingerbread trim to match the wraparound porch on our house.

Inside, I painted the floor with porch floor paint and stenciled designs around the perimeter.

My husband built 2 bunks onto which we placed air mattresses and even a handmade quilt.

We hung a closet rod to hold all the dress up outfits.

There were storage drawers and boxes to hold items like play food and dishes,

dolls and clothes, art and craft supplies.

No this was no ordinary playhouse, it was a dream house.

There was a ladder to a full carpeted loft above for even more play area.

There were sleepovers out here, more plays and pageants than I can count with neighborhood kids, food was cooked in the play kitchen, babies were fed and bathed and put to sleep and imaginations were nurtured.

With the exception of the first 4 photos taken this week,

the rest have been culled from photo albums and scanned .

It was the process of looking through those albums

seeing all these pictures

finding myself way down memory lane

 that a flood of emotions came over me

taking me back

making me realize the significance of losing the playhouse.

I found myself wanting to go back to these days,

even if just for a little while

duck my head and enter

sit to a tea party with my hostess

most likely dressed in a gown, play makeup and all,

and just soak it all up.

Enjoy every moment without feeling like there was something else I should be doing,

places I needed to go, errands to run, work to do, half distracted

the way most mother's feel at that time in their lives.

Since that is not possible,

I will have to content myself with these photos

and all the wonderful memories
have a good cry

and start over with my grandchildren.

Tea anyone?

I would also like to thank everyone for their comments last week, I have been unable to respond yet and visit everyone's posts but I will work on catching up over the next 2 weeks as I will be away again next week at Art and Soul.

Now you can take a walk, over to The Studio Sublime to see all the other great posts.