Upcycled Play Kitchen

One of my favorite projects has been this little upcycled kitchen that my hubby and I made for our little girl this past year. It was supposed to be her Christmas present but we ended up moving in December (never again!) and so all the Christmas projects were put on hold. We finished it a few months late and it ended up being her Easter present instead. Oops.

However, it was totally worth the wait, in my humble opinion. And Evie agrees with me (at least on this one thing). She ADORES her kitchen and plays with it all the time. Which is one of the reasons this project is my favorite. I love to see her get so much enjoyment out of this kitchen.

I didn't even have to bribe her with marshmallows to smile for this picture. She really loves her kitchen.

Also, I just love how this project came together. Like it was meant to be. You know how you have an image in your head when you are planning a grand project and when you are finished you are like, "Oh. Well, it's not EXACTLY how I envisioned it, but I still really like it." Maybe that just happens to me. But that didn't happen with this project. No, siree, Bob. It turned out even better than my wildest dreams (I have always wanted to write that).

My wildest dream.

We started out by trolling Craigslist, looking for that perfect piece to make a little stove and oven set. I didn't want to build the kitchen from scratch; that gets expensive very fast. I finally found a dresser that I thought would work and sent my dearly devoted husband out to pick it up. When he came back, he not only had the dresser but a file cabinet that would work perfectly for a little fridge. Double win! Apparently, when the guy selling the dresser found out what we were doing with it, he got very excited and just gave us the file cabinet, along with some extra plexi-glass for the oven window. See what I mean about just coming together? We got it all for $20.

Once we had everything, the hubby got to work (I will admit that I did not help much with this part other than keeping him company and talking his ear off). The first thing he did was gut and shorten both pieces. He also cut several inches off the front of each piece, which made them shallower and easier for little arms to reach in.

The hollowed out and shortened file cabinet on its way to becoming a fridge.

After the pieces were the height and depth that we liked (it took us several tries to get it right), my husband trimmed out the oven and sink cabinet with 1"x2" pine that we purchased from Lowe's. He used a 1"x4" for above the oven since we wanted to have our stove knobs there and we needed the extra width to install them. He was able to repurpose the old dresser door for the oven door by sanding the tar out of it and cutting an opening. Shelves were put up in both compartments.

 

To make the dresser look more like a kitchen, my husband added kick plates and faux feet using 1"x4" wood pieces. The hole was cut for the sink.

 

For the fridge, he rounded off the upper corners to make it look more vintage. Using a scrap piece of lumber for the door, he countersunk the hinges so the door would close evenly. Once the door was closed, he used a jigsaw to match the round edges. Then he added the shelves to the fridge.

I picked Behr Clear Water for the kitchen color (apparently, I really like this shade of blue because my wall color is almost the same blue) and Evie helped us paint it. Kind of.

My husband cut out the cute backsplash from some scrap wood and attached it to the back using little pieces of wood.

  

The white circles you see are the burners before they received their black paint. I didn't want to have to try and cut out four perfect circles (or rather, have my husband try) so I found decorative wooden soccer balls in the wood cut-out section of JoAnn's for fifty cents a piece. We primed and painted them and they worked perfectly! After that, it was just installing all the little touches and finishing the paint on both the fridge and stove.

 

  

Here it is complete and set up in our playroom!

From an ugly green dresser, to this adorable sink, stove and oven set. Talk about an upcycle.

The sink skirt was really simple to make and turned out so cute, especially with the little pom-poms. My husband was a little skeptical of them at first but he has come around. Don't tell his friends.

Behind the sink skirt is where the dishes are kept. They are usually not quite this neat.

The faucet. Oh, the faucet. This was the hardest part of the whole project because this is where we stalled out. We couldn't figure out how to get a real faucet for a reasonable price. My husband suggested making a faux faucet out of PVC piping (absolutely not, I said) and I suggested just buying the cheapest one at Lowe's and swallowing the cost because the rest of the project was so cheap (dream on, he said). And that's when our Kitchen Karma stepped in again. While at Lowe's drooling over the faucets and trying unsuccessfully to convince my husband that the kitchen needed one desperately, an employee overheard us. He pulled this gorgeous faucet out from under his work station and offered it to us for five dollars. Yes, $5. He said that it was returned over a year ago because it was broken and they just hadn't sent it back. I couldn't believe our good luck. It fit perfectly. Cue singing angels and choir music.

For the sink, we used an old metal bowl. I wanted to be able to remove the sink for easy clean up. This has proven to be a very good idea.

I purchased this little clock from Hobby Lobby in the clock making section ($2.50 with a 40% off coupon) and I really like how it looks mounted in the backsplash.

These glass knobs are also from Hobby Lobby and I waited until they were 50% off and snatched them all up for $10. The sleek, metal pulls for the oven and the fridge are from Ikea and were $7 for both.

A peek inside the oven.

I bought the blue and pink tins from the dollar section at Target and use them to store some of the play food. Not all of it because my child could literally open a grocery store of plastic food if she so chooses.

I LOVE this Frigidaire sign on the fridge. I used my Silhouette machine and the font Top Speed, which I downloaded from Dafont.com. I cut the words out using my black vinyl and then applied them to the door.

We had some leftover trim from when we made shelves for my daughter's room and we used that on the front of the fridge shelves. Classy, no?

Since I had leftover fabric from making the sink skirt I decided to make matching towels for the kitchen. I got a pack of two towels and two dish towels from the dollar store (rock on, Dollar Tree) and added borders of the fabric to the larger towels. To the smaller ones, I used pink bias tape.

I couldn't be more pleased with how the kitchen turned out. And especially with the cost. Here is our price breakdown.

Furniture and plexi-glass: $20

Wood trim: $9

Wooden circles: $2

Faucet: $5

Clock: $2.50

Hardware (hinges, pulls, knobs): $21

Paint: $8

Fabric: $12

Towels: $1

Bins: $2

Wooden scraps, white paint, trim, metal bowl: FREE

TOTAL: $82.50 

This was seriously the best Christmas/Easter gift ever and I am so grateful that I have a talented hubster who puts up with loves to help with all my projects.

Have you ever upcycled a piece of furniture? How did it turn out?


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