Friday, May 10, 2013

Play Kitchen from ALL recycled materials-DIY

O.K, so I have been wanting to make a pretend kitchen for Sierra for a long time now (for more than two years  for a matter of fact ) -even since we had move from Haifa to Rosh Ha-Niqra and threw away her ugly plastic kitchen which I hated anyway...
And finally I strike gold-my best friend Ola,decided to renovate her kitchen and while taking it down  I asked her if she can give me the wooden doors from her old cabinets ...
I could have take a full unit and make it into a quick kitchen like you see it done  all over the web, but I wanted something a bit different and unique...something that is more ME

So after my hubby complained about me collecting other people garbage ,I had him drive to my friend's house and take all the doors from her and bring them to me *what an excitement :D *

Frankly,  the idea of making a kitchen out of the doors came about a week after my hubbs had bring them in  :p
And during all that week ,he kept trying to convince me to throw them away...But I stood on my own and kept them till the muses stroke-and what a blessing that is,(that I stood on my own) as the kitchen turned out AMAZING !!!!
I'll let you judge :)

Here is the step by step of making a dream kitchen
All you need is 6 doors and some creativity :)

Making the base = 2 doors


3rd door for the countertop

4th door for the kitchen's backsplash 
Also ,you'll need a bowl for  the sink and some creative ideas for the burners-see what I came up with for the burners next---and remember this cute little door as well

Yep,you see it correctly-these are bike's gear (from my hubby's old broken bike)
 I stuffed a plastic bottle cap in the middle of the gear and spay-painted the whole thing black


 looks gooooood

Now for the base of the burners- take an old baking sheet and spray-paint it with a metalic paint to give it a shiny silvery look (unless your sheet is already silver,then you can skip the painting step...but mine was VERY old and full of rust ,so I had to paint it prior )
 I decided to paint the bowl with the same spray,just to give both items a uniform look

 Now the beautifying procedure begins 
Painting the old doors white

 Sierra is helping out :)

 The finished door after I gave it some distressing treatment 

 Time to make a hole for the sink (hubby came into the picture  ...as if I can't draw a circle myself :D )

Marking....Drilling...and
  
The  power tools entered into the picture 

Now drilling holes for the cooker's handles
How cool is my cooker...HA :D

O.K dear husband,as long as you are here, and all the power tools are out... 
 I decided that the kitchen needs a shelf  
*hubby doesn't happy-needs to work some more :p

 Cutting the shelf to size

 Installing the shelf inside the unit

 Now Mama needs a panel for the pretend stove :) 
*My  private handyman  attaching the knobs after I had him make the panel of course :D
HE grouchy ...Me  HAPPY!!

Finishing touches-
 Curtain to cover the sink and straw container to play the role of the stove

 Hanging rod and a little metal tin from IKEA to complete the look 
(something is missing on the left hand side :( uuufff )


 Close up on the cooker and burners

Had a lovely elephants tile on an iron base towel hook laying around for years without a use,so finally it has  found it's place in the family

Placed the kitchen  unit inside the playhouse we just finished building for our two ladies
See my previous blog post about the 'making of' the playhouse  (it's made of very special ingredients ;)

 Well...you may think that all is ready, but after seeing Sierra and Sheluvi playing in the house with the kitchen inside,I decided that a table they can eat or draw on  is missing ...
SO I made a table out of the 6th door

 Table's leg -
At the beginning,I used a simple 4x4 beam,but I really wanted to make it more fancier than just a 4 by 4 ...
Lucky me,my dear husband has found this old chandelier with a lovely wooden pole to it a few weeks ago (near the garbage of course)


So,I dismembered it (Dexter me :D )
 (I used the metal base for a very cool project ,I'll blog about in the following post-stay tuned )
 Unfortunately , the lovely curved wooden pole I took from the chandelier ,was a bit to short,so I had to find a plan of how to make it higher ...
After thinking about it for a while ,I found a perfect solution- I took a small piece of  wood, drilled a hole in the middle and screw the wooden pole on, to rise it to the right hight


 Ta Da

Now painting white again :)

 Screwed the leg to the table top and now standing and admiring the result from the side :D
 Yet,I haven't done with the kitchen....I decided to build a top cabinet for a total bliss

It was made of different bits and pieces of wood beams we had left from different DIY projects
Very simple construction too-so easy,I didn't even call my hubs for help!

 After painting it white ,I screwed it to the playhouse
 But still something was missing...a door!!!

Now that wasn't a problem at all- remember the little door from the beginning of the post? 
Well I have 3 wooden doors laying around  in my house for YEARS now...
They were firstly  made for me way before Sierra was born!
I love their rustic barn style look, and refused to throw them when we took apart the cabinet they were attached to.
Finally, after about three years of hanging around without any purpose and with a continuing danger of been thrown out by my dear second half ,I found them a  job :D

Looking good ,my dear :p 

I hang the door on a piano hinges ,but for some reason,it refused to stay close (I guess, something is not leveled in the playhouse -or the house itself...or the cabinet I made...)
 Anyway,yet again,I had to find a creative solution to the problem!
I must say,I'm so happy that I am a junk collector...as after searching for some kind of lock to solve my unleveled door issue ,I found this industrial thingy which my hubby took apart from an old pallet  and it gave a PERFECT fix to my problem and looks super cool on a rustic kitchen 

Check out the cool ceramic plates my father in law bought for me at our local flea market :)
The threesome works so great with the total look of the playhouse 

 And how awesome is the bird nest on the roof ,ha ?! 
Hubby found two of these thrown on the ground in one of his walks with our little ladies


 And here are the rest of my rustic barn  doors peaking out-waiting to be hung ...

Amazing what can be done with reclaimed goods/ other's garbage , haa 
It's a good thing not everybody are aware of this^^...:D 
Otherwise I couldn't have found all these awesome treasures and make this wonderful kitchen for my girls :)


So ,before you throw an old door/chandelier or even a hinge ,think about it !!!!






bear_hugs

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