The Pink Play Kitchen

About a year and a half ago, I found a link to a blog of a girl who makes adorable play kitchens out of old end tables and night stands.  She sells them to earn money for her church's homeless ministry.  I was inspired by her designs and have been planning to make one ever since.

I picked up a few free furniture pieces here and there with plans to turn them into Eliza's kitchen, but have been putting it off because the garage is so cold.  Even though I wanted to finish it for Eliza's birthday, I didn't think we had the time because Mike has been so busy (and the garage is still freezing).  Mike, who is superman when it comes to cold weather (and just about anything else) took the initiative and got it started.  It was so fun to work on a project together (even though half of the time I was in the house while he was in the freezing garage).

I cannot believe I didn't take before pictures!  This is the best I have:

I found this end table in someone's free pile the day before trash day.  It was had one drawer in it (and no hole in the top) and casters on the bottom.  The finish was quite thick, so it took a lot of sanding and roughing it up before we primed it.

I found this for free from someone at church.  I thought it would make a nice cupboard for the play kitchen, so I turned it upside down and Mike cut off the excess, so it looked like this:

 We were worried about how well the laminate finish would handle being painted.  Mike sanded it as best he could and we made sure the coats of primer were thin so it wouldn't chip off.

 While Mike slaved in the cold garage, I primed in the comfort of my blanket while lying on the couch.  He thought I was a little ridiculous, but I think it worked out great!

We had most everything on hand for the kitchen, so it didn't cost us much!  I would say we spent about $15-20 on everything.

 The top cupboard and the cutained area below are both nice storage for dishes and food.  The oven door opens a little more than ninety degrees, but not as much as it appears to in this picture (it looks like it just flops all the way down.  Mike put magnets in the top corners of the oven door and in the kitchen itself so the door stays closed nicely.

 For the sink we used a stainless steel bowl we already had (we had 3 identical ones).  The faucet is a wooden letter J and the sink knobs are wooden people (I guess that is what they're supposed to be).  I got them both in the craft section at JoAnn Fabrics and painted them with silver craft paint.  I painted grey burners for the stove and used chopsticks cut up and painted black for the metal part of the burner.  The stove knobs are milk lids painted silver.  All the knobs turn very realistically (as opposed to just spinning around).  Mike is amazing!

 I found a pattern online for an awesome kid apron!  Since the neck strap has elastic and the waist strap has velcro, she can put it on and take it off easily by herself!  There is a hook on the right side of the kitchen to hang her apron and hotpads.

 The kitchen was a big hit with both kids!

 I love that both kids make their own sound effects when they turn on the water.  I love seeing them pretend and make me lots and lots of guilt-free food.

 Caleb loves taking over when Eliza isn't there to push him around.  We store some of the play food in little white buckets (no, that's not a chef's hat) which Caleb has a habit of dumping out so that he can wear them.

Our little kitchen lives in our big kitchen so we can all cook together (and who doesn't like tripping over plastic fruit when you're making dinner).  We are thrilled at how it all turned out!