DIY Play Kitchen From Old TV Stand!

My husband and I decided to try our hand at a TV stand play kitchen this year for Christmas! We were super excited about it and we knew our girls would freak. We started hunting for the perfect TV stand and I lucked into finding one for $20.

Here's the before and after!

Tons more pics inside the post, including progress photos, instructions, a printable, details and a full price list. :)

*Price list and product details at the very bottom! Also, I should say that before we started..We looked at tons of other DIY kitchens to get an idea of what to expect. One blogger in particular warned that it would be so much more expensive and time consuming than we were expecting.. Truer words have never been spoken!

So this was the TV stand we found. I thought it was so perfect and it had everything I wanted for our DIY play kitchen.

I did what I usually do when I want to work towards a certain vision, and I made a picture of what I wanted on Paint. lol!

The first step was to take off the doors and remove the inserts that wouldn't work with this project. You can see the shelf on tracks on the right. My husband took that out and cut it down to fit in the cabinet on the left. That became our roll out crisper drawer in the fridge.

After that, the TV shelf was removed, the crisper drawer was installed, the oven door was fitted and the hole was cut for the "sink" which was a metal bowl that I bought at the dollar store.

The new doors we needed were roughly cut and the holes for the taps were drilled. The taps/faucet we ended up going with was a brand new bar tap that I found at RONA. At this point, my husband also installed our light fixture. We bought a basic mini pendant light. Using a standard 2 prong plug in, my husband converted the light fixture from a wired connection to a plug in one. He installed the fixture to the "roof" and over the sink area.

The final cuts on the door were made and all hardware was fitted including magnets and hinges.

The stove window was cut, the window on the "wall" was cut and wood filler was applied where needed. At this point, we decided to construct something to make a stove back as I felt the stove would be too deep without one. My husband built a simple wooden box. I found some adorable 5" coasters at Bed Bath and Beyond that happened to look just like stove burners.

There were tracks and a dividing wall installed for the oven and an oven rack. The lower cabinet was one large open space to begin with. I found the oven rack on Amazon. It's just a large cooling rack for baking.

The appliance doors and components were spray painted. 1 coat of spray primer, 4 coats of silver!

The wood filler was sanded down, reapplied and sanded where needed and then we were ready for paint. The burners were secured using Liquid Nails. Up until this point, my husband was in charge.The paint and making it pretty was my job. :)

The painting process began and I decided to go one color at a time.

This was after the blue had been completed.

At this point, all the painting had been completed. 3 coats of the blue (homemade chalk paint), 4 coats of white, 2 coats of black chalkboard paint and everything finished with 2 coats of Polycrylic top coat. The silver parts were done with 4 coats of silver spray paint and 3 coats of the Polycrylic. The shelving was done with white spray paint.

We fitted stove knobs to the wood block. My husband had to cut and alter these metal rod things to create control posts for the stove knobs to fit onto. I created a stove screen graphic on my computer using Paint.net. I cut the "screen" to fit and affixed it using a spray adhesive.

*UPDATE NOVEMBER 2015*

Feel free to save the graphic and use it for your stove screen, although I'm not sure how many people will want to use 12:25. If you want a customized number, feel free to comment

and I can probably do one up :) I printed this image as a 4x6 and cut my "screen" from that.

I bought fabric for curtains and a friend of my Mum sewed them into tiny curtains for us. I used a 12" "sash rod" (rod made for exterior door window coverings) for a curtain rod.

We constructed a window out of a cheap white frame from the dollar store, a piece of plexiglass attached with Krazy Glue and some white ribbon for the window grid. I attached the ribbon with Krazy Glue as well. I took a photo of our front yard from my porch and used that for the "outside".

At this point, we were getting incredibly excited. Our original goal was to make it look like it was meant to be a kitchen and never a TV stand. I created a marble looking countertop using a $1 roll of contact paper from the dollar store. I sealed that with Polycrylic as well.

My husband put all the doors and hardware back on! He permanently installed the faucet and sink. We put the hooks on for the utensils.

Hooks were added to the side for the aprons I had custom made on Etsy!

It was ready to transport from the garage to the basement on Christmas Eve around 3pm. Once we got it to the basement, we were able to add the little finishes!

Christmas morning, my girls were excited to unveil the "big gift"!

Lights turned on and doors open!

The fridge

Drawers

The oven and cupboard. We will be adding tap lights in the oven and fridge soon! The white specks on the oven bottom are just sawdust. They needed to be vacuumed! The stove door has an arm so no toes will get squished!

 Stove front details!

 Here you see the light switch on the "wall". When pressed, the light functions as it should!

"Tile" backsplash and countertop!

Window and curtains. Window frame was secured using Liquid Nails.

The girls were super excited about their custom aprons!

My Mum bought them an adorable Melissa and Doug dessert stand. They've been having so much fun baking us all kinds of desserts!

So that's it! We are overjoyed with the end result and it far exceeded our expectations! You can see that my vision really came to life, thanks to my amazing husband!

My girls have been enjoying it every day and my oldest is blown away that we made this ourselves.

Now, for the details and costs!

TV Stand - 20$ - Found on a site similar to Craigslist

"Best bow in the world" (to wrap) - 5$ - Target

Aprons - 28$ - Etsy

Oven rack - 12$ - Amazon

Hooks for utensils - 2$ - Dollar Store

Marble contact paper for counter - 1$ - Dollar Store

Hooks for side (aprons) - 3$ - Dollar Store

Crisper basket - 1.50$ - Dollar Store

Wood filler for large holes - 10$ - Home Depot

Pendant light - 28$ - RONA (pendant here, shade here)

Wireless light switch - 20$ - RONA (find it here)

Conversion plug in - 2.50$ - RONA (find it here)

Tap - 56$ - RONA (find it here)

New stainless steel pots & pans, utensils - 20$ - Toys R Us (find them here)

Peel and stick "Smart Tiles" for backsplash, 3 sheets - 24$ - Home Depot (find them here)

Furniture pads for the bottom - 3.40$ - Canadian Tire (find them here)

Arm for stove - 5$ - Home Depot

Hardware (fridge, freezer, stove, cabinets) - 50$ - Home Depot

Hinges & magnets - 20$ - Home Depot

Coasters for burners - 17$ after coupon - Bed Bath & Beyond (find them here)

Wood (stove back, doors etc ) - 20$ - Home Depot

Liquid nails (window frame and burners) - 8$ - Home Depot

Spray primer - I had a few cans already but it can be found at any hardware store. I use this kind

Fabric for curtains - 2$ found defective fabric on clearance - Fabricland

Frame for window - 1.50$ - Dollar Store

8x10 Plexi glass (2) - 12$ - Home Depot (find them here)

Paint & paint supplies - 33$ - Cloverdale Paints (we are lucky to have an amazing friend that works there and gives us a discount! The paint is excellent quality)

***DETAIL ABOUT PAINT! The white was a plain, eggshell white paint. The black was chalkboard paint found here that we already had, the blue color (probably my new favourite color ever!) was CIL's Blue Diamond.. Found here!***

Plaster of paris - 5$ - Home Depot (find it here)

***Used the plaster of paris to make homemade chalk paint. Wanted to try it out! Recipe found here***

Polycrylic top coat in a Clear Satin finish (2) - 40$ - Home Depot (find it here)

Spray paint, Rustoleum Universal titanium silver (3) - 31.50$ - Home Depot (find it here)

Elmers spray adhesive (for stove screen) - 7$ (find it here)

Krazy glue (for window parts) - Had some on hand

Tiny curtain rod (sash rod) - 4$ - Home Depot (find it here)

White spray paint (for the shelves) - 7$ - Home Depot (find it here)

Photo for window - 5$ - Taken by me and printed at Wal Mart

Stove screen - Taken by me and printed for free at Wal Mart. I had a coupon for free 4x6's

Stove knobs - 20$ - Canadian Tire (find them here) but I also saw them on Amazon (here)

Small Boston Terrier canvas print - 5$ - Target

Tea towels (washcloths) Set of 4 - Was a gift from my Mum - Target

Dessert stand - Was a gift from my Mum

Vase & Flowers - Had them laying around

Play food, dishes and other accessories - Used what the kids had from before but plan on adding to it

***We will be adding tap lights in the fridge and stove. A pack of 3 will be 10$

TOTAL: 539.40$ before sales taxes

Like I said, way more time, money and effort than we planned! We estimated around 300$. The little details were important to us so we were ok with splurging. In the end, every second and every penny was completely worth it for something so loved by our girls!