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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We decided the time was ripe for an upgrade and purchasing a new bedroom set and getting rid of our old Ikea night stands afforded us an opportunity to get the brain wheels churning and to design Tzofi a kick ass solid kitchen she can play with for the next few years. And one that won’t put us in debt. We also recently renovated our walk in closet space and have a few old bookshelves which are in pretty bad condition so we have even more raw materials to work with.

This is a pretty big project with many steps involved and we still aren’t 100 percent sure how it’s going to turn out. I plan on documenting this DIY project here as we move forward. Today we made major progress and I got to use my new jigsaw for the first time. I like tools. Power.

These are the night tables we are dealing with:

Step 1

The first step was to measure the legs and decide just how much we wanted to cut off. Ziva meticulously measured the height, marked it off and I sawed off the legs with much pleasure. I even wore safety goggles which was also enjoyable.

Step 2

We then attached wheels to the bottom of all of the perfectly cut legs. I figured that after all the work it’s going to be a pretty heavy unit so we wanted to be able to move it around fairly easily. Plus it added a little extra height.

Step 3

The “drawers” of the night stands open vertically. The idea is that one will be the oven and the other the refrigerator so I removed one and reattached the hinges on the side so it opens horizontally. Here’s what everything looks like right now.

The next step is to figure out how to get the sink in. I’m probably going to cut out a circle in a piece of wood and slide in a stainless steel metal bowl so the lips rest comfortable in the hole and then place this piece of wood somehow between the two night stands. We also plan on putting a shelf underneath which will be covered by a curtain (sewed by Ziva of course). We are still trying to figure it all out. There are many design elements that still need to be decided – extra shelving, knobs, burners, etc. We welcome all suggestions and advice. We are trying to use as much recycled material as possible and to keep the cost down.

What do you think about it so far?

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

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Enter Ilan Harari, Lod’s current Mayor who was appointed after Benny Regev was removed due to rampant corruption. Regev, highly influenced by Rudy Giuliani, has a plan. Increase visible police presence, security cameras and set up roadblocks in the town to prevent junkies from coming in. A decent plan, but when 1 out of 130 residents of your town has a drug file with the Police the cards are stacked against you. (More here)

Enter Ikea. According to today’s Globes (Israel’s daily business paper) the PMO has offered 3-4 Million shekels (roughly one million dollars) towards the infrastructure of the building should IKEA choose to open in Lod.

At a meeting held on October 16, 2005 (parallel to IKEA Israel’s negotiations with the Rishon LeZion municipality), with the then mayor of Lod Benny Regev, Avishai Cohen, then head of the PMO Division for Coordination, Follow-Up and Control, said the state would give the project a “green track,” and that “it would not be a problem for the division to attend to the necessary business with the Ministries of Interior an Industry, Trade and Labor regarding the Investment Promotion Center and discounts for superstores.”

A document obtained by “Globes” reveals that the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) has been promoting the opening of a branch of Swedish home furniture chain Ikea in Lod and even offered IKEA Israel various benefits, including NIS 3-4 million in aid through the Lod Municipality, which would be used to develop a superstore in the city.

Cohen also declared at the meeting that, “beyond that, we will, as a rule, be on your side.” He went on to say that the PMO could not be of help with regard to discounts to employers since these are usually given only in frontline regions, but suggested a way round this. “We’ll find a special way in which to help a project of this scale. Instead of giving grants, the municipality will receive a one-time budget for infrastructures of NIS 3-4 million.”

(link)

I believe that opening a branch of Ikea in Lod would be a godsend for the community. It will provide hundreds (potentially thousands) of jobs and bring hundreds of thousands of shekels in revenue to the struggling town. It will also be the impetus for other businesses to open nearby. One just has to look at Ikea in Netanya as an example. Since opening, numerous specialty supermarkets, cafes, restaurants and other stores have opened within the vicinity. Opening Ikea in Lod will without a doubt create a snowball effect that will only have a positive influence on the city.

If Times Square can be cleaned up, why can’t Lod? Granted, I’m not an urban planner nor a criminologist, but my gut feeling tells me this is a great idea. Lod is easily accessible from both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (direct train!). And soon with the advent of the southern part of Road 6, Beersheva.

What do you think? Would the opening of Ikea in one of Israel’s most criminal cities help the city or just backfire?