The Kitchen!

Remember this post? Sammy really really really wanted a play kitchen for his birthday. I knew that he'd be bored with it fairly quickly so I didn't see spending a whole bunch of money on something that'll just sit around until I finally found someone to take it. Commenters agreed with my assessment that a cardboard kitchen set was likely the way to go and when I saw an offer on Freecycle for boxes, I also saw an opportunity.


The first challenge was getting the boxes into the car but I succeeded. The stack of boxes in the living room was somewhat daunting but we were up to the challenge. Sam and I started our project that very night by making the kitchen sink. We used those brass fasteners with the top and the long prongs that open flat to hold the cardboard pieces together and they worked quite well. I thought I'd need to do some glueing but that didn't work very well -- the fasteners worked great and had the added advantage of being something Sam could help with because he got a little frustrated that I wouldn't let him use the box cutter. I threw that in to prove that I do have a limit to my allowing him to use knives and other sharp implements.

The next two days we worked on the refrigerator but took a break to carve pumpkins on Thursday but we fnished up the oven and shelves on Friday after trick or treating. We had to do something with all that sugar energy. Yesterday we painted the whole thing (and the driveway) with splotchy leftover latex paint, last night he painted the stove burners with a Halloween motif, and this morning we added the faucet for the sink ($5 at Recycle North - couldn't beat that!) and the doorknobs on the oven and refrigerator. It is done! Oops, I just realized we forgot to find something for the knobs to turn on the stove and oven. I'll wait until he asks to finish that little detail. Ben the troublemaker asked where his dishwasher was.

Check out the paint on his crocs! Good thing he's getting a new pair for Christmas or his birthday...

During the writing of the post I had to stop to eat our first lunch prepared in this kitchen.

I predict that this kitchen will live in the living room until I can't stand it any longer, then it'll move to my office and then it will be given away, perhaps through Freecycle. Any bets when that will happen?

Update: We had three different kids in our house yesterday all of them drooling over the high-tech cardboard kitchen. Sophie even asked me if I'd get more boxes and make one for her even though she's got her own wooden kitchen at home. I told her that maybe when Sam was tired of it we could pass it on to her and Sam informed me that he'd never get tired of it. I'd say this project was a big hit! And all my kitchen stuff seems to be migrating to his kitchen.