Frugal DIY Play Kitchen!

For little Man’s 3rd birthday party I decided that a play kitchen would be a good addition to our playroom! I didn’t have a lot of money to spend (none really) but I still wanted it to be cute! I found a possibility on etsy.com for a cardboard one and bought the PDF. I loved it but it required a lot more materials than I had available at the time. So I looked around and found some materials that I thought would work.
I first saw this end table that I was using as a cable box stand and nothing else. I grabbed that and replaced it with my file cabinet as the cable box holder lol
I knew I needed room for a sink too so I found an old drafting desk that the top ‘lift up’ portion of the desk was damaged on one edge but was long enough on the ‘good’ part to cover the top of the end table and then have overhand for the ‘sink’ portion.
So I had my handsome hubby cut down the desk top to the right size, cut the hole for the pie plate sink and screw it on to the top of the nightstand- lining up the edges. I caulked/used wood filler on the seam where the top of the end table and bottom of the wood came together. Then I taped off the half that overhang with painter’s tape and newspaper and spray painted the entire nightstand/remaining portion of desk top white. It took a couple coats and I didn’t do the back, the inside or the side under the over hang since those wouldn’t be seen. The reason I did this is that I wanted it to have some separation between the  stove/oven side and the kitchen side. It ended up looking like the sink is in a butcher block countertop- love it!

Next I took off the tape/newspaper and placed the pie plate in the hole. It has a lip and we measured the bottom of the plate (which is a bit smaller than the rim) so it fits in tight and the lip keeps it from falling all the way through.
I traced a saucer four times onto the ‘stove’ side of the kitchen and filled in the circles with black acrylic paint. Handsome Hubby drilled some small holes and fitted them with these little metal pegs I found laying around and that’s what we used to hold the ‘oven’ knobs on with. The knobs do come off but I didn’t want to glue them because I wanted them to be able to spin. I wrote the ‘temperature’ & ‘on’ ‘off’ with a thin line Sharpie.

Then hubby measured and cut plywood to fill the front of the end table for an oven door and he cut a ‘window’ in the middle for the oven window. I spray painted that white and we attached it to the kitchen with hinges at the bottom, magnetic tape to hold it closed and upright and a handle to pull it open with.  The ‘window’ of the oven is covered from the inside with a sheet of transparency film and it is just taped on using packing tape (so it’s clear and blends in). I might hot glue it on later but for now it works!
 

After that we just screwed the handles through the overhand/old desk top part of the kitchen for faucet handles and used Gorilla Glue to attach the wooden J (I painted it sliver first) upside down to look like a faucet. I would have loved to do a screw up through the bottom of the over hang into the bottom of the J but when we tried it started to split the J- so glue only was what worked for us!

I used sticky backed Velcro on the edge of the over hang and sewed the matching Velcro (using sew on Velcro obviously lol) to the bandanas to make a sink ‘skirt/curtain’
And that was that! I had everything but the hinges, handles, J and knobs on hand. The oven ‘knobs’ were free and the rest was all $1-$5 each.

 


So here are the materials you would need to make your own. I have linked to similar or the same products where ever it was possible!

Materials: End Table(I used one similar to this- only mine had two shelves)    
Pie Plate with rim (but no handles) (mine came in a pack of 2 and was similar to this)
wooden or paper mache letter “J” (mine is wooden- this link is for paper mache because I couldn’t find the right ‘font’ of J that looked like a faucet)
Kitchen or Bath Replacement Faucet Handles (mine are similar but couldn’t find them online)
Acrylic Black Paint
Metallic Spray Paint -Silver
Satin White Spray Paint
Replacement Oven Knobs (mine are actually from an old Helicopter)
Plywood (got mine at my local Lowe’s)
Sharpie Fine Point Permanent Markers
Wood to form ‘countertop’ (the same width as your end table from front to back and then about twice as long-mine came from the top of an old desk that part of the wood was warped. We cut off the bad part and used the good part)
Solid Color Bandanas - (Whatever Color you want)(mine are leftover bandanas from the Pirate Birthday party!)
Small Hinges (you’ll need at least two to attach the oven door with)
Magnetic tape (you can get this at Wal-mart or a craft store also)
Kitchen Cabinet Handle (this is similar to the one I used but I would have loved to use this kitchen cabinet long handle because it is longer-more like an oven handle)
Velcro (both sticky backed & sew-on)
Transparency Films
Packing Tape
Gorilla Glue
Screws

I hope you all find some interesting materials to make your own play kitchen! Just know that you CAN do it without spending a fortune on those wooden play kitchens they sell!
In fact, I’m not the only one who has made their own play kitchen.

Have a Happy Day,

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