Four Gifts

I thought I'd share a little preview of what Rosie can expect under the tree come Tuesday morning. We are continuing with the tradition of four gifts.

Something she wants. | Something she needs. | Something to wear. | Something to read.

 For "need" we went with socks. She really doesn't need anything in the strictest sense, but Kyle said she was running a little low on socks that fit. She's now set for the next six months -- at least.

For "read" we chose B is for Beaver, an Oregon alphabet book.

For "wear" she is getting a pair of rain boots. I wanted to get a pair of plain red or yellow ones, because I am the practical Mama she is going to roll her eyes at as soon as she's capable. But these ladybug boots were on sale and that's pretty practical too. Given how much she loves pointing out eyes, she is probably going to be beyond thrilled to find eyes on her boots.

And now for "want," which brings us to the real purpose of this post -- to show off Rosie's brand-new play kitchen!

We've known for about a year that we wanted to make her a play kitchen. We toyed with the idea of modifying an entertainment center. There's no shortage of media cabinet turned play kitchen inspiration on the internet, but we never came across one that looked right for us. Most of the ones we found were really big. We didn't want to sacrifice the space in our small house and they seemed too tall for our short little gal.

Around Thanksgiving we we found this gem at Goodwill for $9.99.

We decided to build our play kitchen from scratch. I drew up some simple plans designed around the space where we wanted to put the play kitchen. The scale for the microwave would have been way off, but Kyle brilliantly suggested we turn it on its end and make it into the stove.

If the weather was warmer we might have tried to keep the project a secret, but neither of us wanted to be out in the shop trying to assemble this thing. We elected to forgo the secret and build the play kitchen in our kitchen. Little girl even tried to help.

Once we had the basic structure built, we set it in place, just to make sure it would fit where we wanted to put it.

By then we were wrapping up the weekend, so the rest got put on hold. While I was at work, Kyle decided he couldn't wait for me and kept the project going. I did get to help with a few elements. I "tiled" the counter top and back splash with dozens of paper tiles and mod podge.

We had planned to buy a stainless steel bowl for the sink, but Kyle remembered we had a pair of stainless dishes, which Gordon used to use as food and water bowls.

The faucet was an incredible find at the ReBuilding Center. I had been hoping we could find a faucet from a motor home or a basement bar. The ReBuilding Center only had about five faucets to choose from and this was one of them!

I also helped with the stove top. We found these fun disks at the craft store.

The back side of each disk was already black. I painted a few lines with silver paint and we had ourselves faux gas burners.

The stove top controls were Kyle's genius. He happened to notice the tops to Trader Joe's squeezable apple sauce would make good knobs. Rosie usually only gets squeezable apple sauce on special occasions, because her practical Mama and her practical Daddy really don't like spending money on something we have jars of in the cellar and the plastic waste makes us shudder a little. Rosie didn't seem to mind taking one for the team and eating an extra box of these so we could re-purpose the caps.

Kyle drilled small holes in the center of each one and then screwed them into the stove top. By leaving the screws a little loose, the knobs actually turn.

Kyle found a mini cooling rack at Goodwill for $.99 and added it to the microwave turned oven.

The fridge and freezer section is basically two little cupboards. The freezer has a wire shelf we found at the ReBuilding Center during our faucet quest. Kyle later found Goodwill also sells tons of these racks, but we opted to go with wooden shelves in the fridge since we already had the wood.

Kyle built the drawer at my urging. We needed a place for oven mitts and utensils, plus I thought Rosie might really like having a drawer. We opted to go with open shelving under the sink mainly because we ran out of wood.

We still have a few ideas for finishing touches. We want to add some oven controls and a curtain around the window (which is just a photo frame painted to match the rest of the trim). We've also been thinking the area behind the stove looks a little bare.

For now we're all pretty pleased with the finished product. Rosie should be pretty excited for the chance to play with it permanently instead of only when when we're showing it off  or working on it. Here's the whole thing one more time:

The whole project costs us about $100, which is the going rate for wooden play kitchens (most of which are particle board and not real wood). We tried to get as many used supplies as we could and we also mined the shop for paint, hinges and extra wood.

Since this project hasn't been a secret, we know Rosie really loves it. Thank goodness too, because we would be crushed if she didn't. We're a bit more smitten with the whole thing than two adults should be.

Here's to the joy of building. And to the joy of fake cooking.