I’m going to attempt to walk you through some of the steps I took to make a play kitchen set out of a pair of nightstands. It ended up being a lot of fun and fairly easy to make. We hired a contractor to make the most difficult part, the door. The contractor was able to use the two drawers to make the custom door. This allowed us to use the same wood and cut down on supply cost. I didn’t take pictures of every step mainly because I did most of the work in between naps and didn’t always have time to grab my camera. I hope this is helpful! Please comment if you have any questions and I will be happy to help.
Here are the step by step guide on how to make a play kitchen.
Find two nightstands that are at the height of a toddler or the child that will be using the kitchen set.
I removed the middle shelf from the nightstand that would become the oven.
This opened up a groove to allow for the oven rack {aka cooling racks} that were cut off to fit the space.
I left the middle shelf on the kitchen side.
I removed the backs from both nightstands to replace it with beadboard.
I used mending plates and trim to serve as the backsplash.
Little Miss helped me install the backsplash. At this stage she had no clue that I was working on something special for her.
We went to Lowes and had them cut a piece of plexiglass to fit the oven door. When I came home my husband caulked the inside of the door with silicon and we carefully placed the plexiglass in it.
My husband made the cuts for the kitchen sink and faucet. I used a corning ware casserole dish as the sink mainly because we have an apron front kitchen sink and the porcelain is more familiar to her than stainless. I found the faucet at the mission for $5. I really wanted a “J” faucet but couldn’t justify spending $40+ on one. I will just be patient until I find one that is used and then I will replace it to look more like a kitchen sink rather than a bathroom. It’s not like she can tell the difference.
My friend Brooke made the stove burners using her Silhouette machine
I found the antique stove knobs at the local appliance repair shop. They had a bucket full of old vintage and antique knobs.
I initially placed a battery operated touch light in the back for Little Miss to use as the oven light and quickly realized that we were going to blow through touch lights in a hurry. If the oven light wasn’t on, then the oven didn’t work and her food wasn’t “makin” so I had to make a quick modification.
I borrowed our friends “hole cutter drill thing”
and cut a new hole for a nightlight.
The nightlight has a switch on the front of it so Little Miss can turn it on and off herself.
It’s secured with hot glue on the inside and caulk on the outside. It’s plugged into an extension cord that’s plugged into an outlet.
The kitchen sink curtain was made with Amy Butler, Heather Baily and Tula Pink fabric that you can find on fabric.com.
