Recycled Play Kitchen

Boy the time flies by!  It’s been a week since my last post, and I haven’t made thing!  The ideas are always flowing though.  At the moment, I’m focusing some attention on a new project.  

Two Christmases ago, Marcus and I wanted to get a play kitchen for the boys.  We thought they would have fun with it, since every time we went to the library, that’s all they played with.  I couldn’t bring myself to get on of the big plastic ones…they were too ugly.  But the cute wooden ones were more money than we wanted to spend.  So what do you do?  You make one!

I went the thrift store and bought and old end table.  It was $5 and weighed a ton.  It was dark wood with a really funky carved pattern on the doors…so 70s.  Kind of like this one:

When I brought it home, Marcus was not convinced I knew what I was doing but he played along, and helped me with the first phase.

We removed the doors, added a divider to the shelves so there would be 4 compartments.

Then we cut a hole in the top with a jig saw.  Finally, we put a piece of plywood on the back.

At this point, I took over and finished the rest by myself.  I primed and painted the outside of the piece a glossy black.  I used some baby blue paint left over from our bathroom for the inside shelves.  For the top, I taped it off from the rest of the piece and used a spray paint that gave it a stone effect, so it looked like granite!

After all the painting was done, things got really fun.  I pounded a cake pan into the hole in the top to make the sink.  I used an upside down “J” from the craft store for the faucet.  For the taps I used two little wooden pieces.  For the eyes of the stove, I used four little wooden discs which I painted silver (also from Michael’s).  The stove knobs are inexpensive cabinet knobs from Lowes and are Gorilla glued on.  I found a cute picture online and printed it out on a regular old piece of paper.  I stuck it in a frame then attached the frame to the backing.  

We added a little shelf, and a towel rack to the side.  And finally, I attached a little chalk board to the other side.  Voila!  Play kitchen.

The boys really liked it…for awhile.  After a few months it just seemed like they were breaking it and not really playing kitchen.  We moved it to the basement, and they forgot all about it.  I decided a few months ago that it was too cute to sit in a basement, so I listed it on Craigslist for $100.  I got several inquiries, but they didn’t pan out.  I forgot about the listing, but apparently forgot to delete it, because just yesterday, I got 2 messages in my inbox asking if it was still for sale!  By now, I’ve had a change of heart.  I don’t want to sell our little kitchen after all, but I let these women know that I could conceivably make another kitchen for them.  They are both interested, and one even went so far as to talk about selling them in her friend’s baby store!  So all of a sudden, I’m in the play kitchen business!!  What???