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Building A Play Kitchen

I don’t normally post kid projects on here because, well, I don’t have kids so the opportunity to make things for kids doesn’t arise very often. But recently, the time had come and I had a lot of fun doing it!

From time to time, we have friends come over and bring their kids. I’m sure these poor kids think we are the most boring people ever because we have no toys. Okay, maybe a few legos from when Jason was a kid and a couple of toys from a McDonald’s happy meal but that’s about it. Boring! And since my friend Heather comes over regularly and brings her 2 1/2 year old, Alana, I figured I should have something for her to play with besides my button collection. Rather than go out and buy a bunch of stuff, I decided to build a play kitchen.

I did a lot of research before starting and I came across this one from forty two roads. I loved it because I could pretty much make the whole thing using what I had on hand, and it comes apart so I could store it easily. You can buy the plans for it from her etsy shop here for $8 and build your own. She also has plans for a cute washer and dryer :)

The whole thing is made of cardboard and then covered in contact paper. Genius! I changed mine a little bit by not adding the top piece because I didn’t have any cardboard that tall and because I’m lazy and didn’t want to go searching for some :)

For the sink I used a bowl from the dollar store and for the faucet I used some plumbing supplies we had on hand and spray painted them silver. Then I used some small wooden finials for the handles and also spray painted them. Next, I used a short curtain rod and hemmed some material for the front to provide a curtain and add some color.

For the burners I used old sand paper from our orbital sander and just spray painted them black and hot glued them on. For the stove knobs, I used some old knobs from a record player. Aren’t they cute?!

I covered the whole thing in white contact paper except for the stove which I covered in silver contact paper to make it look like stainless steel :) Then I added a cabinet pull for a handle. Also, on the inside of the stove, I have a few little metal racks that I found at the dollar store. It was crazy, I had finished building the whole thing and I went to the dollar store in search of a sink and I also found these little racks used for cooling baked goods. I figured I would just buy them and hope they fit inside the oven and they ended up fitting perfectly. I think if I had them from the start and tried to build around them to make them fit they wouldn’t have fit as good as they do by chance! Lastly, there is a magnetic catch to keep the door closed.

All in all, it was a super fun project and Alana loves it! Another funny little story… I found the little pot that is sitting on the stove at Goodwill. When I took it to the register, the girl said, “What are you going to cook with that?” I told her it was for a play kitchen and she said, “oh, I guess that makes more sense.” I thought it was funny :) Especially if you could see how small it is in real life!

I hope you enjoyed my little play kitchen post. Happy cooking :)