How to Make a DIY Play Kitchen Part 3: How to Make the Sink, Countertop and Stove

I know you all missed our DIY Play Kitchen goodness over Valentines Day. But we are almost done! Today we are going to learn how to install the countertop / stove area. that includes the sink, faucet, stove and countertop material.

(joining us late? That's ok. Get started with the first post here)

Things You'll Need:

• Countertop material (laminate, faux granite contact paper or paint)
• Stainless steel bowl
• Sink faucet
• Hole Saw
• Jig Saw
• Liquid Nails 
• Caulk
• Clamps or heavy objects
• 1 (6 count) package of 1.5 inch wood circles
• 3 large wood circles
• Wood discs
• 2 thin birch dowels
• Grey paint
• Glack paint
• Clear craft glue
• Multi-hook rack (I got mine at Dollar Tree)

Let's Get Started!


Countertop
If using laminate or contact paper, measure your work surface and cut your material to size.

Cut a hole for the sink (whether you do this before or after gluing down the material will be best decided by the kind of material you use. I cut mine out before.) and glue down your counter using liquid nails following the instructions on the package. Add backsplash edging if desired.

The cans are weighing it down while the glue sets. Liquid nails takes about 24 hours to set, so jump ahead and work on making your stove burners and knobs.

Stove Knobs
Bust out your bag of 6 small wood disks:

Cut two of the six discs in half:

Use wood glue to glue a half circle on top of one of the full circles. Repeat until you have four knobs.

Once the wood glue is set, paint the knobs black

Burners
Paint the large wood circles grey. I used these wood soccer ball plaques that I got on clearance and just flipped them over:

Cut your dowels into approximately 2 inch pieces and paint them black along with the knobs you just made above.

Once the paint is dry, glue the grey circles down to the stove area and then glue the dowels down on top with the craft glue.

You can glue down the knobs, or if you want them to turn, you can attach them with screws.

Let all that dry and then wait until tomorrow (gotta let the liquid nails set for 24 hours remember?)

Caulk
Caulk around the edges of the countertop material if you used laminate like I did. If you used contact paper or paint, skip this step.

(sorry...no pictures of this part.)

Faucet
Now that your liquid nails is cured, we can move on to drilling our holes for the faucet.

I used a real kitchen faucet that I got from free cycle so it had the hard ware sticking out from the bottom of it. I used a 1.25 inch hole saw to cut 3 holes. Then I dropped it in like a regular faucet and at attached it with the screws from underneath.

Sink and Hooks
Drop in the the bowl for the sink. I didn't glue mine down in case we decide to play with real water and then we can pick it up and dump it out. You can glue your down with liquid nails if you'd like.

Attach the bar with hooks above the sink and hang your utensils on it.


Sit back and enjoy your handiwork because you're almost done!

This post is part of a mini-series on how to make your own play kitchen from a re-purposed piece of furniture. The beginning of the series with photos of the finished play kitchen and links to all subsequent posts lives here.

How to Make a DIY Play Kitchen Part 2: How to Make the Refrigerator

So sorry for the delay in posting part two of the walk through on how to make your own play kitchen. Big, exciting projects got in the way. Big, exciting, I might get to be on TV kinds of projects! (But I think that's all I can share for now).

All that to say... it just gave you more time to catch up right? Everyone got their entertainment center picked out, primed and painted? Good!  Let's get cracking on the details!

(joining us late? That's ok. Get started with the first post here)

Things You'll Need:

• If you have a glass door: Primer (and brush or roller you can prime with)
• Painter's masking tape
• Magnetic Paint  (I used Martha Stewart's)
• A paint brush you can throw away
• A small paint scraper
• Paint in whatever color you'd like the fridge to be
• Bar Handle and hardware (I got mine for $4.98 from Home Depot)
• Drill
• Package of adhesive hooks (I got mine at Dollar Tree)
• 2 or 3 wire baskets (I got mine at Dollar Tree)
• Cute Letter Magnets (Tutorial for how I made mine is here)

Let's Get Started!

Prep
If you're following along with me and left off after the last post, you should have an entertainment center that is primed and painted but missing all of it's hardware. Before you move on to getting the fridge up and running, if yours has a glass door like mine did, you going to need to put primer on only one side of the glass and then re-install it in the door, primer side out. Go ahead and put the hinges back in and re-install the door as well, regardless of what it's made from.

Make it Magnetic!
Every great fridge is magnetic so that's how we are going to make it!

Go ahead and tape off the area you want to make magnetic. My fridge door had a recessed area and I decided to just paint that part with the magnetic paint.

Using the brush you don't mind throwing away, paint your first coat on the door. Warning: This stuff is thick and you'll probably see your brush strokes.

Once the first coat of magnetic paint is dry, you'll want to apply a second coat. This is where that small paint scraper comes in. To help smooth out the ridges from the brush strokes, I applied the second coat with a scraper (think like you're spackling the door...but with magnetic paint instead of spackle).Peel off the masking tape while the paint is still wet.

Once the second coat of magnetic paint is dry, paint your fridge in whatever color you'd like it to end up. I chose white, but you could do a "stainless steel" look, too.

Hardware
Get out your drill and install the new handle. My new handle used two screws (instead of just the one that the center came with) so I re-used the first hole and only needed to drill one hole.

Inside
Now we need to hang the baskets we're going to use inside the door.  I got a package of 9 adhesive hooks and two wire baskets from the Dollar Tree. Make sure you follow the instructions on the package for the hooks for cure time to make the bond as strong as possible.

Extras
That's it for the main part of the fridge!  Now, of course you can accessorize. On the outside, I used the Alphabet Magnets I made when I wrote this tutorial.

On the inside, I started to put empty food packaging like Annie's Mac and Cheese or cracker boxes since I don't have any normal play food made quite yet.

Join us next time for how to install a countertop, sink and stove!

This post is part of a mini-series on how to make your own play kitchen from a re-purposed piece of furniture. The beginning of the series with photos of the finished play kitchen and links to all subsequent posts lives here.

DIY Play Kitchen Reveal!

I have been dreaming this up since November and I am so excited to show you what I think is the biggest and coolest thing I have made. Prehaps ever. May I present to you my...

DIY Play Kitchen!

I wanted to make my own play kitchen for three reasons:

1. I needed to save money (brand new play kitchens start at $100)
2. I wanted control over what it was made of so I could use healthier materials
3. I needed something that wasn't girly

How did I do?
The total cost of my play kitchen was $55.56
Here is the break down of where the money went:

Some of these things I could have admittedly done for less money if I had waited out Freecycle a little longer or had lived in an area where I could cruise town on trash day to pick up some furniture "roadkill."

Want to see more pictures?

Can't get enough? You can also watch a video tour of the kitchen:

If you have been thinking about making a DIY play kitchen of your very own, I will be doing a series over the next couple weeks breaking down each step for you. It will not be an all-out tutorial BUT I promise to try and show you the details of how I made this and hopefully inspire you to strike out on your own to try making your own play kitchen.

How I Did It:
Pin this post to come back and check on later or subscribe by e-mail to get each step sent directly to your inbox. I will link up the individual parts as a post how I did them to the bottom of this post

Pin It

Topics in This Series

Part 1: Selection and Prep of a Great Entertainment Center

Part 2: How to Make the Refrigerator

Part 3: Countertop, Sink and Stove

How to: Undersink and Oven (coming soon)

I hope to see you back here soon!

I am linking this post up to the following parties:

* Made by You Mondays at Skip to My Lou * Monday Link Party at Craft-o-Maniac * A Pinteresting Party at Tutu's and Tea Parties * Make it Monday at Brassy Apple * My Homemade Year at Blissful and Domestic * Craft Monkey'n Mondays at Craft Monkey * More the Merrier Monday at DIY Home Sweet Home * It's Party Time at So Very Cheri * Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T. * Metamorphosis Mondays at Between Naps on the Porch * Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative * Made With Love at Sew Chatty * Get Your Craft on at Today's Creative * Time to Shine Party at A Diamond in the Stuff * Ta-Da Tuesday at Mommy by Day Crafter by Night * Inspiration Board at Carolyn's Homework * Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Hand Man Crafty Woman * Whatever Goes Wednesday on Someday Crafts * Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design * Lil Luna Link Party at Lil Luna *