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

You should follow me on twitter here.

Onwards!

Step 11: You might recall that I found a think piece of wood on the street, cut it, and used it to stabilize and attach the two old Ikea night table’s together. I still had the second piece and decided it would make a great back splash for the kitchen. Using some sort of bracket I had in my trusty toolbox I attached it to the back of one of the night tables and the back of the sink.

And here is what the back splash looks like from the front.

We recently had proper closets installed in our bedroom and removed the piece of crap that was there for years. Despite my efforts, the only way the old closet was coming apart was through the wanton destruction of the thing. So I went all HULK on it. I believe I might have said “HARRY SMASH!” at one point. Good times. It was mostly MDF boards and I thought I might be able to use some of them, but they were far too damaged. Luckily the molding of the top of the closet and shelving was in decent enough shape that I saved it. I hadn’t thought about what I would use it for exactly but I figured it would come into good use at some point. And come into good use it did. Here’s what the molding looks like:

Step 12: I measured the molding and using my trusty saw cut three pieces to sit on the inseam where the back splash meets the counter and to fill in the space between the faucet and and the counter tops (formerly night tables).

While the two pieces between the faucet and the countertops were snug, I had to use a little wood filler to fill in the tiny space between the two.

So here is where we are at now. I’m not quite happy with how the molding on the countertop just ends abruptly. I didn’t permanently attach it yet because I need to figure out a solution to make it a bit more visually appealing. Perhaps with some fancy jigsaw action I’ll make a nice curve on it. Open to any and all ideas.

Total costs:

8 plastic wheels: $6:00
MDF Board: $15.00
Metal Bowl for sink: $5.00
Shelving brackets: $5.00
Faucet and taps: $10.00

Total: $41.00

Recycled materials used:
Night tables: Purchased nine years ago
Wood planks found on the street
Molding from an old closet

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

You should follow me on twitter here.

Step 7: I measured and marked the center of the piece of wood and using several different sizes of spade bits, drilled, starting small and worked my way up until the hole was big enough to fit the faucet nice and snug.

I purchased very basic (and very cheap) faucet and taps at a local hardware store. Here’s my little munchkin modeling it for you. I told her to put it on her head.

Step 8: I then took another scrap piece of the night table leg and using the spade bit drilled holes for the taps. Both the faucet and the taps fit quite well.

Step 9: Using a strong adhesive I attached the wood holding the faucet to the piece with the taps and added another spare piece to use as the base.

Step 10: And finally, I attached the completed faucet and taps to the kitchen using the adhesive.

And there you have it. A completed sink.

8 plastic wheels: $6:00
MDF Board: $15.00
Metal Bowl for sink: $5.00
Shelving brackets: $5.00
Faucet and taps: $10.00

Total: $41.00

Recycled materials used:
Night tables: Purchased nine years ago
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

You should follow me on twitter here.

Step 4: We found some nice thick treated wood planks that once belonged to a closet or something lying on the curb outside our apartment. The first piece I cut to size (using a lot of patience and my trusty jigsaw) and attached it with four brackets to the two night tables for both support and to work as a bottom shelf.

Step 5: It was now time to get the sink on. So that is exactly what I did. I got the sink on. Aw yeah. I thought this was going to be the most challenging action to get right but it proved to be much easier than I anticipated. I purchased a piece of MDF from a local store (this was one of my only purchases for the unit up until now), cut it to the proper length so it would fit nice and snug between the two night tables and had my trusty collaborator Ziva guesstimate the circumference of the sink and then drilled a hole smack in the middle of the circle. Several holes actually. I then meticulously cut out a circle in the mdf board. I purposefully cut less than I needed to for several reasons. First, I’m very inexperienced with the jigsaw and second – I only had one shot to get this right. Luckily, Ziva’s measuring skills were spot on (at least in this case) and I am apparently naturally talented when it comes to the jigsaw. After some trial and error and a lot of tweaking, I managed to get the bowl to fit in the hole nicely. The lips rest perfectly on the counter – which is now a sink.

Step 6: I firmly attached the sink (!) to the unit with brackets which brought even more stability.

I then stood back, smiled and called it a day.

Costs so far:

8 plastic wheels: $6:00
MDF Board: $15.00
Metal Bowl for sink: $5.00
Shelving brackets: $5.00

Total: $31.00

Recycled materials used:
Night tables: Purchased nine years ago
Wood planks found on the street

Next step: Figuring out how to properly attach the sink to the wood so Tzofi can’t just lift it out.

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

You should follow me on twitter here.