Angie is a work at home Punkymom in Orlando Florida, with the same ideas as the rest of us. Why spend a fortune on crap for our kids that we hate? Play kitchens are usually made from plastic and never match the décor of our punk rock homes! Just as soon as Angie’s, 2 year old little girl, Sofie, took a liking towards cooking, Angie decided an investment in a play kitchen was necessary. Investment? Yes, unfortunately toys like this are, and as parents we become unwilling consumers at times. Angie put a halt to this idea, as she had an old entertainment center cabinet that she really wanted to just throw away. Seeing that Sofie was a young chef in the makings, Angie and her husband decided they would turn the old cabinet into the perfect gourmet kitchen for Chef Sofie! They wound up saving a lot of money, not throwing junk into a landfill and making Chef Sofie the happiest little thing in the whole world, as it was custom designed just for her!
You need not an old entertainment cabinet to do this project. You can construct this from an old bookshelf, vanity or just about anything…its up to your style, imagination and a few simple tools and accessories!
This project took Angie and her husband about 8 hours total. Here is her tutorial….
First we took off the two cabinet doors, removed the hardware, and covered them in silver contact paper ($10, Home Depot - one roll should be enough) to give it a stainless steel look. Then we moved the handle on one of the doors to open from the top (instead of the side) so it was more like an oven. Most entertainment centers have magnets on those doors, so you should not have an issue keeping the door closed. We used all the original hardware, so this was free.
Next, we cut a hole where the TV originally sat and placed a silver mixing bowl (free from our kitchen) to use as a sink. We bought a real faucet ($7, Home Depot) to install behind it. Ideally you would have a jig saw to cut a hole for the sink, but we actually used a drill to cut out the hole since we didn’t have a jig saw. We measured just below the rim of the bowl, cut a hole, and placed the bowl in the hole - we didn’t need glue or anything. Same thing for the faucet - measure, cut, and screw into place.
For the stove, we removed the glass door and covered the bottom part in the same silver contact paper. For the burners, we spray-painted plastic lids (sour cream lids for the small burners and large, Sam’s size cottage cheese lids for the large burners) with a high-gloss black spraypaint. We screwed a at-head screw through the middle to screw it into the wood. The knobs were given to us for free by a friend who was trashing her stove. If you can’t find a stove that is being trashed, you can buy the knobs at Home Depot for $15. We used a large bolt and washers to attach the knobs in place so they could still turn. We added the oven knob directly to the oven door using a bolt and washers.
For the back, we bought two pieces of heavy cardboard from Home Depot ($5) and covered one with floral contact paper ($3, KMart). We attached it to the back of the entertainment center using screws and lots of nails. If your entertainment center still has a backing, you can use that instead (ours was totally trashed). To give the appearance of a real backsplash, we raised the bottom piece a few inches and hung it in front of the top, wall-papered piece. We painted the portion that would hang above the stove black to match
the rest of the stove. If I were to do it again (and I had a truck), I’d probably just buy one larger piece to hang. Working with two pieces was a major pain. You can buy a really big piece of the pressed board for $8 and have it cut at Home Depot and then contact paper the whole thing.
The long beam that runs the width of our entertainment center was totally chipped, so we also covered that in silver contact paper. For decorations, I bought push lights ($4, Home Depot - not yet hung as they need batteries) to hang above the sink and stove, a kitchen mat that matches the backsplash ($0.60, KMart), and two metal baskets to hold all of her dishes and utensils ($10, KMart). Total cost for materials and accessories - $40.
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