creative

Play Kitchen | DIY

December 19, 2013

Ok, so a few months ago I was looking at play kitchens for my girls.  Jules really likes baking and helping me cook, so it seemed like the perfect Christmas present.  There are so many really beautiful play kitchens out there to buy, but man oh man are they pricey! So I decided I would make one for them.  It all started with an old desk that I found for free one day when we went to the park to walk with the wonderful moms I’ve met here in Ukiah.  It’s finds like that that make me grateful I have a truck (a little truck, but a truck nonetheless)!

After getting the desk home I drew up some plans.  When I went back into the garage to re-assess the desk I realized it was far to large as a base for this project BUT it makes the perfect project table! Back to the drawing board.  It wasn’t very long later when I found a set of old nightstands, a little beat up, but the perfect size as the base for this project and super cheap ($10). I went back to my plans and revised them based on the style and dimensions of the new base pieces and figured out what I still needed to buy (pan, faucet, stove knobs, spray paint). I found the pan for the sink at Ross ($2), the faucet ($8) and spray paint (2 cans for $6) at Homes Depot, and the stove knobs from Amazon ($6). I had everything else (fabric, wooden dowel, nails, screws, scrap wood, hot glue gun, wood glue, wire, dvds).

The hardest part by far was cutting the hole for the sink because the wood was really thick, I made a pilot hole with my drill and used my jig saw to cut the rest of the hole out.  The second hardest part was attaching the stove knobs so that they were tight but would turn.  I attached the knobs to screws and drilled holes that were slightly larger than the screws and secured with a bolt on the back.

I had this great idea for the stove burners, I coiled and painted wire and glued it on, but the glue kept oozing out past the wire and they would stay down, but any force applied to them and they started to pop off so I spray painted some DVDs silver and glued them down.  I’ll probably modify those later, but for now it does the trick.

I also intended to add an oven door, but since Lorelai has started pulling herself up on everything I can just see her trying to pull up and Jules dropping the door open on her head so I decided to wait to attach the oven door a little later.

It took about a month and a half to do this project, not because it’s totally time consuming but more because I could only work on it a little here and a little there.  I’m happy with it and I can’t wait to see Jules’ face when she sees it!

play-kitchen-kellygesick