D-I-Y by A-M-Y: Play Kitchen

So my latest project has been to make a play kitchen for my daughter. I have always seen these upcyled entertainment centers turned into play kitchens and thought they were just so cute. I have been talking about wanting to make one for a while, but you know how life is, busy busy busy. So a couple weeks ago, Jesse said he would love to help me make a kitchen and that he was on board. That sealed the deal. If I have help, and the desire, what's to stop me now. So the project began. I found this used entertainment center for $20 on VarageSale. (P.S.- if you haven't heard of VarageSale, I highly recommend you get the app! It's basically a virtual garage sale in your community. And it's year round and you don't have to wait for warm weather).

Then we added a couple shelves to the unit to get the counter height we were looking for. The shelf on the right also has a hole cut in it for the sink.

You can see the bowl in the picture below where the sink will be. Then we also added masonry to the back to enclose the kitchen.

Then I sanded the black finish on the entertainment center because it was real smooth and I wasn't sure if paint would stick to it. I wanted to roughen up the surface in order for the paint to stick better and not chip away.

After the sanding, I wiped the whole thing down with a wet wash cloth to prepare for the primer. I even got B to help!

Then I primed the whole thing white in order to give it a good base color so I could paint the kitchen whatever color I wanted.

I bought wooden knobs at Home Depot to be the knobs for the stove. I painted them with black acrylic paint, drew my design on with pencil, painted the design with white acrylic paint, and then put mod podge on the top to seal in the design, as well as give it a shiny gloss.

I found some wooden circles at Hobby Lobby and spray painted them with a metallic silver paint (hard to see in the picture). We bought a square shaped wooden dowel at Home Depot and cut it in 20 equal pieces for the gas burner part. I painted them with black acrylic paint. Then I used wood glue to glue everything together and wa la! The kitchen has a gas burner!

I painted both sides of her refrigerator door. Then I painted a grocery list with black chalkboard paint so she could write a pretend list. :-) Then my husband helped me attach the metal handle. We bought the handle at Home Depot for almost $10 which was a little more than I wanted to spend (handles are pricey!), but I figured if we were going through all this work to make a nice play kitchen, mine as well buy a nice handle to go with it.

Here I have finished painting the main piece and have moved it into her room. I just picked out a couple cans of oops paint for $0.50 each. My husband attached the sink bowl with clear caulking.

I went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore store and found all these components to make a sink. They were all separate pieces and I just glued them together. All the pieces cost approximately $4.50. Score!

Here it is looking a little more like a finished kitchen. The fridge door and oven door are finished and just waiting to be attached. I also used black chalkboard paint for the oven door as well. And you can see Bella has already started unpacking her dishes.

I also found this towel hook at the Restore store for $1.00 and I bought the towel at the Dollar Tree for $1.00.

I found the touch light at the Restore place as well. We found this picture at the thrift store for $3.99 and then we made the frame out of extra scrap wood. I painted the wood with white acrylic paint. I attached the curtain with a wooden dowel and a couple hooks, but you can be creative and attach the curtain with whatever you think would work best.