The boy deserves all the credit (or blame, depending on how you look at it) for being the brains behind this first project. Inspired by all the cute play kitchens on sites like ikeahacker, the boy decided we could handle putting one together too. We gave ourselves plenty of time for planning and building--we actually started on this way back in January. We started with Ikea's trofast storage system. We like this particular piece because its made from solid pine and we love not bringing more particleboard (and offgassed nasties from the glue) into our house.
Aww, look at how little the bean was!
After the frame was together, it just took a trip to Home Depot to get a sheet of plywood that we had cut to create our doors and back piece. At this point, the project lagged for a while, since it was hard to get up the energy (and find the time) to prime and paint all that wood, but thanks to the bean's new nap situation, we finally picked up the pace the last couple months.
Once again, the boy had a stroke of genius and suggested we leave the center third of the base cabinet unpainted to act as a cutting board. Too cute!
The base cabinet and doors were easy enough, but we wanted the back "wall" to have stripes, and taping off stripes is my job around here. It hurts my eyes a little bit to look at the tape in this picture, but the stripes are evenly spaced (more or less).
Finally (finally!) it was time to put everything together, although it didn't go as smoothly as our pictures make it seem. First of all, you may know that Ikea (like the rest of the world) uses metric measurements. Home Depot, on the other hand not so much, so we got a funny look when we asked for cuts down to the 1/8 of an inch and the helpful orange aproned man asked if he could round up. I figured we needed to sand down the plywood anyway, so what could it hurt? Well, as it turns out, that was a mistake. The boy sanded everything down before we painted it (since sanding is the boy's job around here), then sanded some more when it appeared that the doors were too big and finally sanded a third time for good measure until finally, everything fit the way it was supposed to.
In the interest of safety, the boy rounded off the corners on the three doors (oven, "drawer" under the oven, and fridge). We're also pretty sure that the back wall is never coming off. That sucker is held in with over 30 screws. There's still a sink, faucet, window, and place to hang utensils still to do, so stay tuned for the big reveal in a couple weeks when we'll (hopefully) have some pictures that weren't taken in our dingy basement.
1 comment:
So so cute! I am very impressed.
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