Monday, November 15, 2010

Cooking Up Something A Little Different



We made this adorable play kitchen for our two and a half year old son, Adam. Before you "ooooh" and "aaaah" and think we are the most talented people ever, I am here to say we are NOT. We've both seen our shares of mess ups and mistakes, but this kitchen truly was easy to put together thanks to Ana White and her generous (FREE!) plans!

I really wanted a play kitchen for Adam, but I can be a little bit picky. I didn't want some big plastic contraption. I didn't want one of the big hefty kitchens made from pressed particle board that would be sure to fall apart within a few months, but I really did not want to spend more than $600 on a toy.

Enter Ana's plans. Thanks to her, we were able to build this fantastic play kitchen for under $150!

Here's how I finished it off:

The handles on the fridge door are simple drawer pulls snagged at Lowe's on clearance for $1.30 and $0.89 each.

The oven and stove knobs came from eBay seller partsmadness. They were just under $13 for the set of five with free shipping.

The stove burners are plain unfinished 4" round circles found in the unfinished wood section of my locals Michael's craft store.

The sink faucet was a great find. Our local Lowe's had a cart filled with damaged faucets. Ours was missing a piece needed for plumbing, but it was perfect for our playkitchen project, and a bargain at just $10!.

The sink is an 8" stainless steel dog water bowl purchased for around $6 at Target.

The dishes are from Ikea, and they have some of the best gender neutral pieces for very affordable prices.

Lastly, the alphabet and number prints came from Etsy seller Craft Therapea. They were custom made to match Adam's room, but I have a sneaking suspicion she'd be thrilled to work with you on your very own set.

I also wanted to say that we live in an apartment with no garage or work space. We had Lowe's make all the lumber cuts (it cost less than $6 and he did an excellent job!) and then assembled and painted this kitchen in our apartment. I'm not lying when I say that ANYONE could do this.

And now it's time to play!

4 comments:

  1. Hi there- You're kitchen turned out great!!! I am wanting to build a kitchen like this for my daughter. I don't have a garage either, so you are really an encouragement that I can do this! What type of wood did you use? Thank you!!!!

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  2. Thank you! We used pine. It had some knots but we filled them in with wood filler to make a smooth surface.

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  3. Great kitchen, totally inspired. I've been to Ana White's page and been over the plans numerous times but have been a bit intimidated. My son really wants a red kitchen and hoping we can use yours as a template with the plans. One question, did you use Ana's plans from the one she built? wondering the heighth dimensions for stove, sink- do you know how tall?

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