When I look around our play area, it's evident to me that we were interested in making our own toys long ago. This is in fact the first toy we ever attempted ourselves. It's far from perfect, and in retrospect, I'm sorry we painted it. I wish we had left the wood without color. But the reality of this particular piece is that it started it's life as a TV stand. Have an old piece of furniture that you would like to breathe new life into? You With minimal skills, you can definitely do this too.
I wish I had pictures of the process to share, but at the time, I didn't take any. Regardless, it's easy. First thing first, we took the awful castors off of the bottom of this and sanded it down. We bought a simple metal bowl and traced it onto the top of our kitchen. We cut a hole slightly smaller than what we traced. We cut four wooden circles from thin wood (2 bigger, 2 smaller) and painted them black. Next, we added a piece of wood to divide the 'oven' from the other door (which is sometimes a fridge, sometimes a pantry, etc). We cut doors to fit these two spaces, added hinges and hardware and did all necessary painting. The circles got glued to the top, we designed a simple hutch based on the width of the piece and finally added four wooden drawer pulls for knobs.
The space underneath is ample for a large basket, which is where we store our felt food. In the future, I foresee a smaller kitchen moving in (something with the wood grain showing and a lot more Waldorf in style) but in the meantime, this was a project that cost us about $25 when you factor in what we found in our basement, and has served us well for nearly 4 years. You could turn anything into a kitchen, from a small dresser, to a night stand, to an end table or TV stand. I would love to see what you come up with for your own play space!
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