Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Maybe. Part V

Gripes! This kitchen is taking forever. It’s been over a year (!) since I first started this project. Yes, a year. Don’t blame me. Blame work, chronic pain, socializing and, most importantly, the birth of our second daughter. She’s OK with the delay as she understands that she will reap the benefits of this kitchen in a couple of years. Tons of progress has been made since I published Part IV and the end is oh so near.

Join me, won’t you?

Step 13: Clearly, for aesthetic reasons, we needed to cover up the area below the sink, so the bottom of the bowl wouldn’t be exposed. We couldn’t tolerate criticism from other toddlers about the unseemly site. Ziva envisioned a curtain, a suggestion which I adamantly supported because that meant I didn’t have to build a door – which I certainly couldn’t do even if I wanted to. That’s not where Ziva’s ingenuity ends. For some odd reason, Ziva held onto a plastic toilet paper holder that came with a bunch of toilet paper (duh). When she realized we needed something with a spring to easily remove the curtain rod so we can remove the curtain when need be (either to replace it or clean it) she remembered that she had saved the holder. We put a nickel in there to hold the rod in place, I glued it to the bottom of the sink, drilled a perfectly sized hole in the other end, inserted the rod and we had a functioning curtain rod. Yay!

Step 14: It’s stovetop time. We initially planned on just painting circles on top of the stove but once we took stock of our supplies I realized we had more than enough MDF to elevate the stove top to make it more pronounced. I measured a nice rectangle and cut the piece of MDF with my table saw.

Instead of painting on the burners or cutting out circles I recycled a bunch of old cds and spray painted them black. I think we are going to double up on these for a bit more elevation.

We then painted the MDF board silver and using wood glue attached the stove top to the kitchen. I couldn’t find my clamps anywhere so I used our uber-heavy Kitchen Aid mixer instead to weigh it down. Worked like a charm.

Step 16: You may have noticed in the image above a few pegs on the side of the counter. If I had a shekel for everything I’ve purchased for our apartment over the years that ended up in a drawer or storage I’d have about 22 shekels. While going through our crap I found an old peg rack that I never installed. It was a bit too big to attach to the kitchen as is but luckily the pegs were screwed on so we were able to easy remove them. Using a spade bit I drilled four holes, squirted in a generous helping of wood glue and rotating with Ziva, held the pegs in place until they dried.

Now little Tzofi has a nice place to hang her utensils and pots and pans.

Step 17: When we painted the stove top we also painted the inside of the oven.

And that’s where the kitchen stands today. I’m pretty sure I’m done with the construction. We are trying to figure out the best way to have oven knobs that actually turn. We experimented with plastic bottle caps from our milk cartons but the screw is warping the plastic way too much.

8 plastic wheels: $6:00
MDF Board: $15.00
Metal Bowl for sink: $5.00
Shelving brackets: $5.00
Faucet and taps: $10.00
Black spray paint: $4.00
Silver paint: $6.00
Curtain rod: $2.00

Total: $53.00

Recycled materials used:
Night tables: Purchased nine years ago
Old compact discs
Peg board found in storage
Wood planks found on the street

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part I

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part 2
Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part 3
Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part 4

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Tags: DIY, ikea, ikea hack, play kitchen