DIY Play Kitchen

I've started putting this post together several times, but have never seemed to get it done.  Finally, a year after we made our play kitchen, a post on what we did.

I remember seeing a few DIY play kitchens around the blog world back in the days before Pinterest, and I immediately knew it was something I wanted to do.  Luckily, my husband is quite handy, so he was able to help me make it happen.

We visited a nearby thrift store a couple of times, and eventually found this TV stand.  E picked it out and thought it would be a good choice because it would fit well in our kitchen and it came with a shelf that could be used as an oven door.

I'm kicking myself now for not taking more photos of the process, but here's a quick summary of what we did.  I lightly sanded, primed and painted the entire TV stand.  I decided to paint our play kitchen white because it would fit in with any room in our house pretty easily.

E cut a circle whole in the top of the TV stand, and we put a metal bowl in to use as the sink.  For the faucet and handles we used a wooden J and dowels from Michael's.  I spray painted them silver and E figured out how to attach them.  We also got 4 round plates (kind of like this) to use as the burners for the stove.  I painted a grey square (paint left over from Miss A's room) on the top to be the stove.  Next I spray painted the burners black and drew silver circles on them.  When everything was dry, I used Gorilla Glue to attach the burners to the stove.

We picked out hardware for the play kitchen at Menard's.  They only had basic colors, so I spray painted everything pink.  We used some other wood pieced from Michael's to make knobs and buttons for the oven.  E attached the extra shelf that came with the TV stand and an extra railing piece from our deck to make the oven.  I used the grey paint to add an oven window.

I'm not sure what the oven rack was from, but E found it in our garage.  All I had to do was clean it up and add a fresh coat of paint.  The little shelves from the TV stand were missing when we got it, so E found some extra wood to make two little shelves.

We were able to finish up (most) of the play kitchen to give to the girls as a joint Christmas gift last year.  We told family members that they were getting it so others got them play food and other kitchen accessories.  The play kitchen has been a big hit with the girls!  We have it in our kitchen so the girls can play while I'm making dinner.  Little J especially likes to mimic what Mommy's doing.