As many of you know from my Christmas post, Santa brought Eloise a kitchen for Christmas. Specifically, an IKEA kitchen. And more specifically, a hacked IKEA kitchen, by yours truly. There has been lots & lots of interest in this hack, so I thought I would share!
To start, here is the original kitchen. It isn’t awful, but it’s a little plain & boring (in my opinion!). We opted to get the top section as well, but you can get just the bottom here if you want something more compact.
{via IKEA DUKTIG Play Kitchen}
For the holiday season, IKEA ran an IKEA Family special where you got both pieces for $79 (normally it is $99) which is a GREAT deal for a play kitchen (considering most are over $100 & some are over $500, what?!).
So, in full disclosure, I am not the first one (& won’t be the last either) to hack this kitchen. I perused this Apartment Therapy post to get some ideas. I wanted to give Eloise a kitchen that was really similar to ours, or what I want our kitchen to look like (a lot of my sake since it will be in our house/living room for years likely!) so I decided to give her a two-color cabinet (white on top & grey on bottom), marble countertop& a white subway tile backsplash. Traditional with a modern twist – pretty much my style, right?
I don’t have really any “during” photos since I didn’t plan on doing a tutorial, but this is what I basically did:
- assembled the top piece (without the microwave door)
- assembled the bottom cabinet (without the stove or cabinet doors)
- primed the top, cabinet, & doors
- painted the stove & microwave doors (using this silver spray paint)
- painted the top piece white (using Benjamin Moore Cloud Cover)
- painted the bottom cabinet (using Benjamin Moore Cinder)
- replaced all of the handles (using these IKEA TAG ones)
- added marble contact paper to the countertop
- added backsplash (I drew grey “grout lines” with Crayola marker on a white foam core poster board)
And for those of you who are more visual, here is a picture:
Finally, I made Eloise a tiny little oven mitt (using this tutorial as a guide) & appliqued hand towel (this was my first time & doing non-straight edges was tough!) using this Dwell Studio fabric I have had around for years (which I first used to make these IKEA upholstered stools). Santa also brought her these IKEA utensils & veggie basket, & Aunt Anya (Yaya) brought her these adorable green dishes.
At some point, I hope to “style” her kitchen a little more & add some cute decorations, but honestly, she is at the point where everything is thrown on the floor, & I don’t keep extra décor in my kitchen, so I don’t even really know what to add. A faux plant or flowers maybe? For the sake of the photos, I used the little hooks on the backsplash (there is a little rail there if you can’t tell) to hang her utensils & oven mitt, but in real life, she is still too little to reach those hooks & just pulls really hard on whatever is hung on them, & the hook pops off!
Also, one thing of note: there are removable plastic legs that you can add for height which we left off (for now) since the kitchen is a good height as is (she can barely open the microwave, for reference). But it is nice to know we can add height as she gets bigger.
Does your little have a play kitchen? Did you add any personal touches?
M
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