DIY play kitchen

When I first got my Pinterest account, I remember being drawn to a few DIY kid projects.

I mean I was early 20’s, single, no kids and I STILL thought it would be so much fun to find an old dresser from the side of the road to turn into a dollhouse or an old entertainment center to turn into a DIY play kitchen.

Flash forward six years or so, and I got my chance thanks to this beauty, free for the taking!

Check out the transformation and process below for this budget-friendly DIY. I spent $60 for a completely custom, heavy-duty kitchen for the boys and I am pretty proud of the end product!

I started by removing hardware, doors, etc. and cleaning it really well. Then I used liquid de-glosser  generously because I hate sanding! Prime as well. Luckily I already had this stuff on hand so I was still in for $0 at this point.

One of the first accessories I found for the kitchen was these little wooden trivets I found at Aldi that I thought would make good burners. I painted them black with paint I had on hand. You may also see I tried some contact paper I had for a “butcher block” look but ultimately changed my mind. $4.50 in for “burners”!

Next it was time to paint! I used two coats of leftover paint and then sealed the whole thing with two coats of poly. In this picture I was leaving the inside of the refrigerator area to be painted white and oven black!

At this point I changed my mind on the contact paper and painted the “countertop” in a leftover grey we had. I bought the potted plant for $2.99 at TJMaxx. I also got the baskets but ended up using them for other Christmas gifts. I was indecisive, it seems.  Under $10 still!

I found a bowl for the sink at Goodwill for $1 and  a sink faucet set at Walmart for $8 and Travis cut the holes for me to drop it in. I firmed it up with caulk.

I was stumped for a long time on backsplash then had the idea to just staple up a science fair board ($2.75)! I drew a subway pattern on with a black crayon. Don’t look too closely because I messed up repeatedly on those lines!

We happened to have a roofing project wrap up about this time and I scored a fridge door!  It wasn’t as smooth as I had pictured, but it was free and my roofers were enjoying watching my kitchen progress so they cut it to size from our scrap wood.

Handy hubby cut out the middle section of one of the entertainment center’s original doors. I needed to rotate the door to open like an oven and, unfortunately, it was a hair short to be able to use the original hardware location. So, I used some wood filler and (crudely–I couldn’t get it to look great)  filled the holes then painted everything metallic silver.

Hinges and pulls were probably where we spent the most. I was determined to DIY as much of this myself as I could, so this was a process. Three or four YouTube tutorials later, and I did it, but won’t be rushing to put hinges on anything else any time soon!

I re-used some of the magnet closing things for the oven and fridge so they would stay closed and attached hardware pulls. $5 on hinges and $15 on pulls.

I used some baskets and a chalkboard I had around the house to accessorize a bit. The oven “glass” was the plastic from a dollar store poster frame that I cut to size and caulked in. Tom has stood on it and it’s still holding!

That custom vinyl ($15) really made me fall in love! Not pictured yet are some oven knobs we found on Amazon warehouse for $5.

We had these great Melissa and Doug pots and pans which I just love! Melissa and Doug is my go-to brand for toy gifts and I appreciate that they are wood or metal vs plastic! I also made some felt food which is adorable and something I may try again but it was ultimately very time consuming. My kids like the store bought fake food better I think…

Overall I am so so happy with it. And considering it’s their toy I should mention that the boys are too! It cost me right at $60 but if you needed to go out and buy paint you may be closer to $80-100. I still think that’s a budget-friendly option with most decent play kitchens costing $100 and up.

It would mean so much if you’d like to Pin my post! Just click on any image from this post to do so!