The Kitchens

A few of you may remember a post I wrote two years ago.  It was about the kitchen that Austin and I made from a night stand for Leah on her 1st birthday. 

You know how it goes, if you do something for one child you have to do it for all the others, right?!  So, we always knew that once Haley and Hannah turned one they would be getting a special gift as well. 

Here are all the details on Hannah's kitchen!  We bought this back in May for $40 after we found it online for sale not far from our house.  It's an old entertainment center.  Since we had already made Leah's kitchen we knew we wanted to do something similar for Hannah's but we wanted it to be bigger to include some storage and the refrigerator.

Austin got working on it right away!  Here it is sanded with the doors removed. 

After Austin added shelves.  He later added pieces to make the new shelves match the original shelves. 

I skipped a few steps with the pictures.  Oops.  Here it is with the first coats of paint, the drawer Austin made and the refrigerator doors.  He also had painted the countertop with a granite spray and painted the inside of the oven black.   

It's starting to look like a kitchen!  We did the same thing with Hannah's as we did with Leah's and I got small wooden soccer balls at a craft store and we spray painted them black and used painted popsicle sticks for the burners.  We used an old faucet with knobs for the sink and I got little knobs from IKEA for $2 for the stove.  He made the oven door with thick clear plastic so you can see into the oven when it's closed.   

Here is the finished product!!  I have to say, with Leah's kitchen is was about a 60/40 percent as to how much work Austin/I did.  With Hannah's kitchen it was about 90/10.  Austin did almost everything, I did probably 10% of the work.  I sewed all the curtains, kitchen towel, painted all the details, shopped for everything, etc but he did ALL the big work.  He worked night and day, literally for MONTHS.  He would be in the garage for hours upon hours working his tail off to have these done in time and I would usually be inside watching Hannah and making/decorating party cookies, doing party stuff, etc.  It's a whole new ballgame when you're trying to plan a party and do a major project at the same time when you have a little one running around.  Cuts your productivity time down just a tad... 

This is the right side, Austin added a towel rack and I sewed a hand towel to match the drapes I made for the front. 

On the left side we added a chalkboard with the chalk holder at the bottom being part of the original doors that were on the front. 

The front view.  I really don't think it could have turned out any better!  Hannah already loves it and plays with it everyday.  She really likes to get food out of the fridge and put it in the oven and shut the door.  :) 

A closer view. 

Once again my mother-in-law amazed us with her talent!  We asked her if she wouldn't mind painting a landscape for the kitchen window that Austin made.  When she brought it our jaws dropped, it is AMAZING!!!  For a closer look at the details just click on the picture.  There is even a little bunny hiding in there.  :) 

I painted her salt and pepper shakers and the frame with fabric.  The S&P shakers have uncooked orzo pasta in them so when she shakes them they make noise.  :)  The tops are buttons, so they are super cute and girly.

The fridge 

Hannah loves to put stuff in the oven.  We hung a strand of hooks on the left side for her kitchen utensils and I painted an "H" on the right side.  There is plenty of storage below and in the drawer for her food and pots & pans. 

Haley's kitchen was a little bit different.  We thought for a while about what to do for her since Leah already had the stove/oven combo so they didn't need a second one at their house.  We decided to make Haley a refrigerator to match Leah's kitchen.  Out of all three kitchens that we've made, Haley's has the most character and we wanted to keep a lot of the original details to it because it really was just pretty cool.  Austin found it for $40 while out of town for work.  It's super old and made out of solid wood so it's not light but it's sturdy and will last forever. 

So, when you see refrigerator/freezers you see them two ways, side by side like Hannah's or with the fridge side by side up top and the freezer as a pull out drawer on the bottom.  That's how Haley's is, it was perfect when he found this piece.

This was just so neat.  It's an old RCA Victor TV console with the speakers and old turn table in the bottom drawer. 

Once the doors were taken off.  You can see the turn table and speaker box below.  The yellow on the front is the speaker fabric. 

After the first coat of paint.  Austin also made shelves for the fridge. 

This is what our garage looked like for one weekend.  Hanging doors everywhere. 

The final product!  You can't tell in the pictures but the exterior of the kitchen is a light mint color to match Leah's accents.  The knobs are the original white porcelain knobs.  We really wanted to keep this as original as possible so we didn't change the front of the doors because it was just neat.  Her fridge didn't have a complete transformation like the other kitchens but I think it's still so cool. 

Chalkboard on the right side 

I painted another "H" for Haley and we added a corkboard that they can tape things to later on. 

The inside has the lavender color that matches both Hannah and Leah's kitchens.  Austin made turning knobs on each side for the girls to play with.  We also kept the original RCA Victor pull out. 

Once you open the freezer door you can pull out the drawer.  We kept that original as well. 

This is the "ice box".  Austin cleaned it all up and sanded it but it says Victrola on it. 

There you have it!  The kitchens are DONE!  It was a LOT of work but a lot of fun to do and so much fun to watch the transformation!  I love that we were able to give all three girls something special from us for their 1st birthdays.  If our next child is a girl she will get a doll.  ;)  Just kidding.  We already have boy ideas that we can make so hopefully one day we'll be able to do that!