Play Kitchen Tutorial

I have received a lot of requests for a tutorial on how I made the play kitchen. I didn't take very many pictures throughout the process, but I can tell you what I used and give you a general outline of the steps involved. Of course there are many variations and substitutions that could be made, but this is how I built my Ikea-based kitchen:

First, I assembled a RAST nightstand and built off that. I cut out the hole for the sink before I put the nightstand together. I used a jig saw to cut the hole and cut it just slightly smaller than the diameter of the BLANDA BLANK 8" serving bowl.

Next, I cut pieces of wood to make the backboard, shelves, and cupboards. I found a few pieces of scrap wood for 99¢ in the as-is section of Ikea. I brought the scrap wood to Home Depot and had them cut the wood (for free) into the dimensions I needed (except when I got home I ended up re-sawing a few pieces that Home Depot messed up). Here is a diagram of the dimensions:

I painted the pieces that were not the same color wood as the nightstand base as well as the sides of the nightstand. I covered the backboard with black and white checked contact paper that I had lying around. To assemble the pieces, I just went to town drilling holes and adding screws. I used small corner braces to secure the shelf in the cupboard and the shelf on top of the GRUNDTAL towel rail. A few BYGEL s-hooks were perfect for hanging the pots and pans.

For the oven door, I mounted two cabinet hinges to the bottom of the door and put a KOSING handle on the front. The door under the sink was attached with two cabinet hinges on the side and a KOSING handle was put on the front as well. I later added double roller cabinet door catches (hardware section in Home Depot) so that the doors would stay closed and not fall open.

Finally, I used PANNA coasters for the stove burners, a RIGEL hook for the faucet, and a pack of $1.29 wooden knobs from JoAnn's for the stove knobs. I painted the knobs and screwed them to the black board just above the cabinet doors.

None of these things were used in the construction of the actual kitchen, but here are some of the accessories I used:

• ORDNING cutlery (utensil jar)
• FABLER box (red storage boxes, also came in light blue)
• DUKTIG flatware (mini silverware set)
• DUKTIG 5-piece kitchen utensil set
• DUKTIG 4-piece cookware set

If you are willing to tackle this project, I would love to see pictures! It was kind of trial-and-error for me as I played around with the placement of things, so it definitely was a longer project. I am happy with the end result though, and so is my two-year old! If you have any questions, feel free to email me.