Diy Play Kitchen

Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! One of my best friend was home this past week for a visit so I had a wonderful weekend catching up with her. We've known each other since Kindergarten! It's unreal to me that even though we see eachother barely once a year that nothing ever changes. It just goes to show that true friendship will stand the test of time despite the distance.

Anyhow, today I wanted to share the Play Kitchen that I made for my daughter back at Christmas time. After seeing all of the wonderful Play Kitchens around blogland I knew this is something I wanted to do for my little peanut. I looked and looked to find an affordable used entertainment center with no such luck until one week before Christmas. That meant I had a very strict one week deadline. Oy vey! Talk about some pressure!

This is something that I had planned on taking several weeks but ended up squishing it into one week. Needless to say I pretty much dedicated every spare moment to this project to ensure that it would be ready for Christmas morning. Here is the before...

The entertainment center was generously given to me by a friend of my parents. They had purchased a new one and were looking to get rid of this one. It was absolutely perfect for what I had in mind. After a week of devoting myself to this project I ended up with this adorable little play kitchen.

The first thing I did was rearrange the bottom shelf pieces to make the sink and oven area even. Once that was done I primed the entire piece and then painted it. Most of the paint that I used was leftover from other various projects. In anticipation for the "sink" I used a jigsaw to cut a hole the would fit the size of my bowl. The bowl I used was also something that I had on hand from a set of mixing bowls that I had yet to use because I have multiple sets. I figured it would serve a better purpose as Charlotte's sink than collecting dust on a shelf.

Next, the doors were cut from an MDF board, primed and painted. After they had dried I attached them with hinges and magnetic closures. I also used simple stainless drawer pulls for the "fridge" and "stove" handles. To provide depth to the stove I glued another piece of MDF to the top of stove. The pot rack was a key rack that I purchased from Home Depot on one of my many trips.

Every kitchen needs a window so I dug out two picture frames I had in a closet to create a "double hung window". Once I glued the frames to the wood backing I inserted blue cardstock into the frames to give the illusion of a sky. The basket was one I had on hand and spray painted with Rustoleum's "Lagoon Blue" for added color.

I think the last two final touches are my favorite from the project. On the left hand side I painted it with chalkboard paint for Charlotte to draw on. The final detail is the window valance and sink skirt. I didn't want to spend money on fabric so I turned to some of Charlotte's old clothes. I found a nice colorful shirt that matched the color scheme of the kitchen and cut it in half. One half was used for the valance and the other the sink skirt.

I'm so happy with how this turned out and I'm glad I didn't run out and buy a cheapy plastic kitchen for her. This is something that will be around for not only Charlotte but also any children we have in the future.

Have any of you created your own play kitchen? How did it turn out?