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Okay, well the holiday is over I am back to work… and I am FINALLY here to show you our girls play kitchen.  I am so excited about this kitchen and BOTH of my daughters love it (even though the youngest is only 10 months old)  I even feel the pull to play in there with them…

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If you read blogs at all, I am sure you have seen a ton of fun play kitchens around, and I have personally planned or designed like 8 versions.  But the “cottage” idea was finalized when I saw Rapunzel…

I decided that I wanted the pieces to look more like individual pieces of furniture, something you might see in a kitchen that was built before the 1900’s, or stock cabinetry for that matter.  We have the sink and the oven (which Etta also pretends to use as a dishwasher) and even a fridge… but it could easily double as a cabinet, pantry etc.

Okay so here is how this project went down.  Our goal was to not buy anything… technically I had to buy the “sink” and the table leg… the rest of the project is made of left overs from other projects:

Supplies we re-used:

An old desk drawer (we used the top of an old desk for our computer desk and had this left over)

Used the desk handle again too!

Carved Doors (from the hutch revamp) and fabulous knobs

Old faucet from our upstairs kids bathroom update

The shelves that used to be in the playroom closet

Old Radio knobs (I saved these from one of those huge furniture piece radios… with this project in mind)

Old Garage Shelving for the body of the “fridge”

Scrap wood galore!

Edit:  The paint color is left over from our screen project

Valspar (Lowes) Semi Gloss Gallon

Now before you report us to Hoarders… I must admit that when it comes to wood, we tend to keep it till we use it, or have bon fire!  But all the other kept pieces were kept with this very purpose in mind.  And when you know you need to create something that is not normal adult scale, you have to keep your eyes open for what will work.  But yes, our garage, is a bit of a mess with items for projects, but we use stuff from our stash ALL the time…  ( I am feeling the guilt of keeping too much crap right now, can you tell?)

While this is not a tutorial in anyway, I always enjoy seeing how people put things together… so here are a million pictures of the process:

We trimmed off the drawer, to make the cabinet body for the kitchen.

Once the drawer top was all level, Justin built the face frame using our fabulous KREG JIG!

In order to not waste interior space in the “cabinet”, Justin put some spacers on the side of the drawer, then attached some of the cut down shelving we removed from play house closet, to be the sides.  Next he nailed on the finished face frame.

I would have liked to replicate the hutch door molding for the detail on the front of the piece, but nothing was available, so we purchased a detailed table leg.  The leg helped to add the extra detail on the front to give it a furniture piece look.

It was less than $10.00, so not expensive. But we needed two not one, Justin used some short finish nails to nail it to a board. This way it was easier to feed through the table saw, without accidentally turning it.  When we were done we had two legs with a flat back…

(**this is a great way to add a furniture detail to a boring kitchen island or the cabinet around the sink)

I wanted the back to look like a carved marble backsplash…

(which I haven’t had the chance to faux paint to look like a Carrera marble, but hopefully will)

The depth of the whole kitchen is only about 1 foot, which meant the sink had to be very thin.  A bread pan worked perfectly, for only 2.88 cents.

There are 3 total shelves in the “fridge”  The lazy way to add a shelf:  adding a small block under, and the shelf resting on top

I really wanted a wire rack for the oven.   I used one of my old cooking racks that was dying along slow death… it was 1/4 of an inch too long, so Justin cut off the edges, and drilled holes into blocks that he later nailed in place… it worked perfectly.

The door, was just cut from a scrap of MDF.  He cut out the opening then routed a groove for some glass.  I plan on just grabbing some plexiglass for a dollar store frame or two.

We decided to let the door just fall to the ground when open, we considered a chain, but figured, with a small baby toddling around, it would be better to not have sharp corners hanging in mid air.  We had a few hinges left over from our family room storage project.  I liked the extra fun detail it added.

Everything was all built at this point and now it all just needed to be painted!

Once everything was painted, I decided to age it with a little glaze.  I added some black and brown to some clear glaze.  I only needed about 1/2 cup total, you don’t actually use a lot.  Brushed it on, making sure to get it in the cracks, and then I wiped it off with a wet washcloth.  This may not be the “real”  Way to do it… but oh well, It worked for me.  And if I took off too much I just reapplied till I liked how it looked.

In the picture below it was all glazed, but only the right side has been distressed with a light sanding of edges.  I thought is was amazing how the sanding really made the features of the legs pop.  Just compare the two legs and you can see what I mean.

Painting the old hutch doors took me about 5 hours a piece, cuz I brushed it on, and I am hyper critical about the direction of paint brush strokes… and the amount of detail to work around and make sure the paint wasn’t globbing, or dripping or puddling just took a long time.

The second picture shows the difference glaze makes in helping the moldings on the door to pop!

The burners are a .99 cent pack of clear coasters, that had a thin layer of cork on them.  The cork was really poorly attached and peeled of in one easy piece.  Then I took some black puffy paint and filled the edge with black.  I may add a spiral of black paint, or print out a picture of a spiral. laminate it and put it under the piece, it is just screwed on in the middle.

I painted all the fixtures and handles with Rust-o-leum Oil rubbed bonze spray.  I should have primed the MDF first, cuz that stuff was DRINKING the paint.  I realized too late that I shouldn’t have painted the bread pan… it does not stick, so I need to replace it already.

I never remember to keep Styrofoam for spraying screws, so this is my solution… can we say “Ghetto” I sorta think it is funny… uh remember do NOT eat the bread after it has been sprayed!

Okay, after putting it all back together, this is what we got:

Even Kitty likes it!

(And I had to throw in a picture of the hutch, cuz it is so bright and cheery next to the kitchen!)

Well, THOUGHTS?  I REEEally wanna know what you think?!!

If you like this project, I hope you would consider sharing the link on your Facebook, or pinning it!

Published: January 3, 2012Filed Under: *Our Family, *Our Projects, Design Inspiration Tagged: Indoor Playhouse, Kids, Kitchens, Park House, Park House Family Room, Play Rooms

About Cassity

Cassity started Remodelaholic with her husband, Justin, to share their love for knocking out walls together. She is an interior designer, wife, and mother of two. She and Justin have remodeled three homes from top to bottom and are working on their fourth. Making a house a home is her favorite hobby.