a little kitchen for my littlemiss

It took two solid years of persistent nagging, however we (mostly he) pulled it off in less than a month. And wow, did daddy clause kill it this year or what?!

::littlemiss leah's very own little kitchen::

Honestly, as it was coming together I worried that there was a really good chance that I was going to love it even more than her. Seriously, I die! 

It started right after Leah was born and I came across this adorable re-purposed kitchen featured on blog I occasionally read. A quick search of the internet and pinterest turned up loads more. As I snuggled a two month old littlemiss, I told CJ that I wanted him to build her one for either her 2nd birthday or Christmas. I'm not sure he was as excited about the idea as I was...but seeing how he built our real kitchen.... I figured a play version was a no-brainer. I think he carried around the picture for nearly a year, hoping that I would change my mind and just buy one... but I didn't give up and I am so glad I didn't!!

It started with an old wooden entertainment center that we were lucky enough to discover in his sister's basement, that was ready to be donated.

Chris' dad is an incredible carpenter who can literally build anything. I knew that between the two of them they could make anything happen... so finally Thanksgiving weekend, we turned our garage into a satellite "Santa's Workshop"

They gutted the center console shelves and dividers, created new back and side walls with bead board, installed a back-splash, removed one of the glass doors, building a new bead board replacement and cut the hole for the sink all in the first few hours!

We still needed a fridge for the little kitchen, so they built and added that on from scratch...

A simple piece of scrap wood became our stove-top...

and then it was ready for paint and the fun stuff.

We used a sprayer for most of it, which was super duper fancy fast. We did, however have to do lots of touching up with a roller/brush and the counter and stove tops were obviously painted by hand.

After it was painted, we moved it inside and had a couple of late night date nights working on the details and making it perfect!!

Finished fridge with hardware and baskets in the doors.

(Ikea)

Stove Top & Oven

Ikea Coasters =Burners

Vintage Inspired Sprinkler Knobs = Controls

We replaced the glass in the door with a piece of plexi-glass for safety's sake.

They made a guide for the oven rack (jumbo cooling rack/amazon) to slide in and out of.

Ikea Utensil Bars works great for little kitchens too!

Pantry/Cabinet Storage

I found a stock photo of a simple, perfect tree swing printed to 16X20 and framed it in an inexpensive Ikea plexi-glass frame to make the kitchen window.

We even included a battery operated lantern as the light fixture.

We found an old bar faucet for the sink and finished it off with some crystal cabinet pulls as the faucet knobs.

An old mixing bowl became the sink.

An old Ikea end table got a new paint job along with some new chairs and dishes to finish her "dining room"

My incredible mama offered to make the amazing window valance and dish towels for me. She got carried away and ended up making her a perfect little hot pad and ridiculously adorable matching apron as well. 

I couldn't love them more!

Details, details, details. It's all the sweet, little details.

Every single last detail turned out even better than I had envisioned it! 

And let me tell you, I spent a lot of time envisioning it! 

And based on her reaction on Christmas morning... it was a success!

I think it's safe to say that she loves it easily as much as I do.

Thanks again Daddy Clause

and Pop

and G-mama

It's a perfect little kitchen for my sweet littlemiss!