Here is the project that ate my brain for the past couple of months – Isaac’s play kitchen.

Before: JANKY!

After: SWANKY!

I blame the internet; I became obsessed with the adorable DIY play kitchens made from old dressers and nightstands and such that are always being featured on the design blogs. I started looking for a suitable piece to redo. Instead, I found myself at Big Lots (shut up), staring at a janky floor model of a really pinktastic play kitchen. It was marked down to $20. I noted that it was made by KidKraft, whose stuff I generally respect, and that it was made of wood (using the term loosely – MDF, anyway) and could therefore be painted. I hauled it up to the register, gave them $20 and took my prize out to the parking lot. Where I realized that I had once again been foiled by my complete inability to fathom spatial relationships. There was no way that thing was going to fit in the Rabbit without some deconstruction. I keep a screwdriver in the trunk. It’s a regular screwdriver, and has never actually been useful in any situation, including this one. I needed an allen wrench at the very least.

Meanwhile, I was also late for my original destination, an evening of margaritas and Top Chef @ Ryan’s house a few blocks away. So I called her and invited everyone there to laugh at me, because well, this isn’t the first time I’ve been in this situation. Leigh threw on some shoes and came over with her pickup and we threw the kitchen in the back. I disassembled it on a visit a few days later and it all fit in my car then. This was also when I discovered that the person who assembled the floor model may have been drunk, crazy or both.

The final tally was something like three cans of spray primer, two cans of silver spray paint, three cans of turquoise spray paint, one can of clearcoat, one can of plastic-specific silver spray paint, one can of yellow spray paint, and bits of black and white spray paint from my ever-growing spray paint stash. I’m probably still a little high from the fumes.

My first decision was that the little awning and printed backsplash were too twee to live. I couldn’t think of a way to make them not suck, so I made my own backsplash out of an Ikea shelf I had on hand. It’s flanked by two baseboard moulding corner blocks, and I added some half-round moulding to the top. I used photos of antique stoves as inspiration for the knobs and dial on the back. The knobs are made of various round wood pieces, and the dial (with Isaac logo) is just laminated paper.

I kept the original plastic handles, faucet and knobs and painted them silver; I started with Krylon Fusion silver paint for plastic, but I didn’t like the finish so I used Valspar brilliant silver over it. I’m hoping it will wear well, or at least it won’t be as obvious when the brilliant silver starts wearing away, because of the Krylon basecoat.

I should note that I lost a week to the pursuit of a magnetic finish on the refrigerator doors. I am here to tell you that magnetic paint is a LIE. A horrible awful no-good lie and I am still bitter about it. Seven coats! Seven! And not even a glimmer of interest from the strongest magnet. Feh. At least it made for a nice smooth basecoat.

I am especially pleased with the microwave. It has a turntable inside! It’s just a plastic condiment spinner from the Japanese dollar store, painted silver, but I think it adds a nice touch. There is also a light inside the microwave that lights up when the door is opened. It’s a little LED light with a magnetic switch that is supposed to be used inside a drawer. I’m probably more pleased with that than I need to be.

The aforementioned drunk crazy person had damaged the front of the oven door by attaching the hinges with giant screws, so I had to do a little camouflage with extra trim.

The counter-top is yellow and my original plan was to try to create a boomerang formica look, but every attempt at that (rubber stamping, hand-painting, etc.) was a massive fail so never mind. It’s yellow. Yellow is nice.

The burners are CDs with strips of square dowels, held in place by a socket-head bolt. Or I should say, they were that. Isaac didn’t care for the dowels and popped them all off. Fortunately, I kind of saw that one coming, which is why they’re held on with a bolt and can be swapped out. I think for now I’m just going to use CDs with strips of electrical tape and a flatter bolt. I’ll try the 3-D effect again when he’s older.

I put the kitchen in our real kitchen, in front of the window; it’s the perfect height. Isaac likes it, although he’s just starting to enjoy pretend play so it may be a while before it sees a lot of use. Besides replacing the burners, my to-do list includes a general paint touch-up to fix the dings from the assembly process, putting a light inside the fridge, and adding some hooks nearby for his apron and some pot holders.