KIDDOS: Handmade Play Kitchen

For Christmas this year, I was super excited to make the girls a play kitchen out of a recycled piece of furniture. I'd seen some cute ones on Pinterest, made from old entertainment centers and night stands. In September, I found an used, unpainted little boy's tool table at the Idaho Youth Ranch for $13. I new it was perfect, and loved the pegboard backdrop, which would be perfect for hanging tiny pots and pans a la Julia Child. We hid the kitchen in my mom's shed.

We (okay, rather, my mom) painted it red, green and white using leftover house paint she had in the garage. I bought a used faucet at Second Chance, our local architectural salvage shop and my mom had an old mixing bowl we used for the sink. I used the black plastic wheels off of a toy car to make oven knobs and Eric picked up some pegboard hooks at the hardware store.

I hand-painted on the stove burners, and all the other supplies I took from around the house and the playroom. I collected all the girls play food from various locations and put it together in bins underneath the play kitchen. I hemmed a vintage kitchen curtain to fit on a tension rod under the sink to hide them. Vintage aprons, pot holders and a rug were picked up for super cheap at garage sales. I mounted an old phone and some shelving we had around the house on the wall to complete the ensemble. And that darling mosaiced mirror was a birthday gift to me from my talented artist-friend, Reham Aarti. Eric and I spent hours perfecting the little kitchen set-up on Christmas eve, and decided at the last minute to put the girls' table and chairs in the playroom to complete the dining atmosphere. It's provided hours of imagined play for every kid that's stepped foot in this house since Christmas. And the whole project cost around $25!