Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Play Kitchen is Finished!!!!

This has been such a fun project. I loved the idea when I first saw it on pinterest. I loved finding such a great starting piece. I did not totally enjoy the priming or the painting.  But I loved the accessorizing.  I loved seeing the whole thing start to come together.  But mostly I love that it is done. 

It is "technically" a Christmas Present to Owen or at least that is what I said, but it is really for all the kids.  Because it was such a big project they all knew about it (no surprises here!).  We moved it into the toy room and transferred all the kitchen stuff into it and then just sat back and watched the kids play. It was an "early" Christmas. 

What do you all think of it?  Are you ready to make one yourself?  If so, read below.
1.  Find a suitable entertainment center on craigslist and get it! (mine was $20)
2.  Clean and prime it (i used Kilz brand spray primer)-- I liked the kilz brand, but I am not sold on the spray can -- If I had to do it over, I would have bought a quart of the primer and brushed it on.  (A quart is like $7, each can is $5 and it took 7 cans of primer)
3.  Paint -- I used spray paint initially but after 8 cans of red (at $4 each) I switched to the $7 quart of the same color by the same company and was even happier with it brushed on.  (perhaps if the piece had some dimension or fine details then spray would be better, but this is just a bunch of flat boards)
4.  Added beadboard that was spray painted white (bought one sheet of it - it comes already primed)
5.  Found a faucet on craigslist.
6.  Used an Ikea bin for the sink
7.  Painted the fridge and drawers with stainless steel brush on paint (which I really liked).
8.  Used a hammered finish black spray paint for the stove top.
9.  Bought hinges and screws and knobs (the "real" knobs were 15 bucks for the four range ones and 7 for the oven one)
10.  Recycled an old frame, painted it black, used my kids' pastels and painted a window scene. Laminated the drawing so it would look like a glass window.
11.  Hung the frame/window with command velcro tabs
12.  Made the curtains (simple gather).  Hung those with command velcro tabs.
13.  Used Gorilla Glue to glue down CD's then black drain covers in varying sizes for the stove top burners.  (I had to use a hacksaw to reduce the height of these drain covers, but I looked at so many options and thought these looked the most realistic. 
 
Any other questions???
   

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