A play kitchen

This is yet another project that was completed a while back.  I was hoping to have something new to share this week, but we're all sick here and nothing seems to be getting done, except napping.  I felt a little better yesterday, and that made me wildly ambitious.  So I folded the clean laundry that had been getting way too comfortable on the dining room table.  That took the wind right out of me and I was ready for a nap again.

So, yeah.  That's why it's another oldie goldie for today.  I first saw a nightstand made over into a kitchen in this article from Canadian Family magazine.  I was in LOVE.  I thought, 'has anyone else ever heard of such a thing?'  And so I googled "nightstand play kitchen".  And up sprang zillions of lovely blogs.  For the second time in one day, I was in LOVE.

For the most part, I followed the very helpful tutorial at Out of the Crayon Box.

This project took forever, but that's mostly because I waited for the perfect nightstand at the perfect price.  Don't get me wrong.  There were LOTS of nightstands.  Lots that were falling apart for $25.  No thanks.  I knew if I could just be patient for once in my life, it would pay off.  And it did!  I found this gem (solid wood!) for $3.99 at a thrift store.  SCORE!

There were two there.  And the matching dresser.  Now I kick myself for not buying the entire set for under $28 and refinishing it for my bedroom.  Mind you, if I had done that, I would still be on the lookout for the perfect kitchen nightstand.  So, here it is after I've gutted and sanded it, with some pieces in place:

I used bamboo coasters from the dollar store for the stovetop elements.  The backsplash was originally the bottom drawer.  I saved the pull from this drawer to use as a towel holder on the side.  I used these helpful tips from MADE to paint the white and tan stripes, as well as to get sharp lines wherever the green paint meets the white.

The white paint was leftover from other projects and the green paint was $9 for a gallon in the Oops! section at Home Depot.  Double score, because it's the colour I've been wanting to repaint our real kitchen.  Oh yes.  There were a great many plans in the works these past weeks that gave way to napping.  On to happier thoughts - here is the completed play kitchen!

 Baby S' specialties are fruit salad, pizza, and boiled potatoes.  Hungry anyone?

Our favorite choco-banana muffins

Baby S is a very picky eater.  He will eat hamburgers, chicken nuggets, fries and pizza.  That's about it for suppertime foods.  He is not a fan of any fruits or vegetables.  So we have to sneak a lot of them into his diet.  And muffins turn fruit into cake, which Baby S loves.

I used to just make banana bread and pour it into muffin cups.  They were good, but pretty dense, just like banana bread.  Then my husband's Mum shared a banana muffin recipe with me, and I've never looked back.  They turn out super light and fluffy.  You can already tell the difference in the batter before they're baked.  But the very best part is that you only need to use one bowl for mixing - yay for less dirty dishes!

½ cup margarine
½ cup sugar
1 egg
2 very ripe bananas
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. hot water
1 tsp. vanilla
½ cup chocolate chips (I use milk chocolate, but I know semi-sweet is a tooch healthier)

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream the margarine and sugar with an electric mixer.  Now mix in the egg and bananas, then the flour.  In a cup, stir the baking soda into the hot water, then pour it into your muffin batter and keep mixing.  Isn't it SUPER fluffy? We think the secret is in the the baking soda trick.   Add vanilla, mix like crazy and then stir in the chocolate chips by hand so they don't get melty or broken.

I know a lot of cookbooks say that the secret to great muffins is not to overmix them.  Well, I mix these bad boys up like mad and have never had a problem.

We like to use the tiny little muffin cups, but I really fill them, so that there's a goodly sized muffin top.  So we overfill 24 mini muffin cups and then bake them at 350ºF for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick or fork comes out clean.

The car caddy

This was one of those projects that seemed so involved that I thought I might never do it again.  So I made two at once, one for my son (Baby S) and one for his little friend.  My son LOVES his cars and would like to bring ALL of them EVERYWHERE.  The genius of this caddy, to me, was that we could limit the cars to 6, and we would always know if we were missing one.  As it turns out, Baby S would still prefer to bring all of his cars everywhere, but the caddy makes for a nice play mat at home.

I was inspired by two different car mats.

I loved the gas station and car wash elements from this one designed by Lisa Storms:

But I didn't want it to roll up.  I prefer the folding kind like this one from homemade by jill:

I also love how the pockets are numbered.  May as well squeeze in a little educational value.  Plus, it just looks super cute.

So I took my favorite parts of each and this is what I came up with:

And when you open it up:

I'm so happy I found fabric for the grass that's green and has trees.  My first choice would have been green faux-fur, but I looked at Fabricland and they didn't have any.   The roads look kind of like asphalt because it's a dark brown cotton speckled with black.  I used a medium weight denim for the back, so I was okay using light cottons for the front.  For the road lines, I marked where I wanted them on my fabric and then went over it with a zigzag stitch on the sewing machine using yellow thread.

I love that the gas station and car wash are interactive.  You can pretend to pump gas with the end of a shoelace:

Once the car is filled up, the hose gets put back in its holder:

And the cars can really go into the car wash:

This is what it looks like on the back when it's all opened up:

So it just folds up and closes with Velcro.  *Life Lesson: DO NOT SEW ADHESIVE VELCRO.*  Apparently, it's adhesive for a reason.  It gummed up my machine like CRAZY.  I was pretty near tears.  I felt my body temperature rise almost to boiling and then get the shivers.  I thought my sewing machine was a goner.  I searched google for a way to fix it and couldn't find anything useful.  Except the advice not to sew with adhesive Velcro.  News I could have used YESTERDAY. When the initial shock died down, I tried finishing the Velcro tabs by hand.  WOW.  That is some sticky adhesive.  It's not meant to EVER be sewn at ALL, so it just sticks real good.  And it does not like sewing needles.  It told me so by stabbing me in the fingers repeatedly with the dull end of the sewing needle.  I'm pretty persistent, but the adhesive got the better of me.  So I just stayed sad for a couple days, then thought about taking my machine apart and cleaning every sticky part.  Oddly and happily enough, after sitting for a couple days, all the gumminess was gone and it worked perfectly again!  HOORAY!  So I bought Velcro meant for sewing and finished my little project.

And it is such a fun toy that I think I just might make more one day.  As gifts.  It's fun because I let my husband choose the cars, so then it's really from all of us.  I do set guidelines for the choosing of the cars.  All different colours.  My husband finds that overly restrictive because he'd rather pick the 6 awesomest cars, regardless of the colour.  But I feel that boys that are still toddlers would prefer to have six completely different looking cars, instead of the 6 coolest cars in the universe, all in red.  He did well, though, and even surprised me by choosing a police car, which I thought was fantastic, so that cars that speed on their way from the gas station to the car wash can be pulled over and ticketed.

Dear Diary, a china cabinet has changed my life...

My first blogged-about-project - YAY! - is a furniture makeover. I found the cabinet OF MY DREAMS on kijiji for $100, which I thought was a steal.  I loved its pretty details, but it wasn't TOO busy and it was solid wood (pine's not my favorite, but it's certainly better than laminate or veneer... plus I was painting most of it anyway).  I immediately sent the link to my husband who asked the owner what kind of shape it was in, because it looked pretty rough in the picture and we were driving from out of town.  The owner said: "Well, not too bad.  It does have one scratch though."  He agreed to $60 because of the scratch.  60$!!!  Can you believe that??!?  So my Papa came with us and helped with all the heavy lifting (thanks and sorry, Papa!) and when we got there, our first reaction was 'Which scratch is the "one scratch?"'  But we said nothing, and I happily took it home for refinishing.

My inspiration came from this high chair, at A Little Touch of Love:

First, I removed all the hardware.  Then I gave the buffet and drawer fronts a light sanding.  *Life Lesson #1: CHEAP DOES NOT EQUAL A GOOD DEAL.*  Sand paper from the dollar store is almost LESS effective than throwing one grain of sand at your piece of furniture repeatedly.  Invest in real sandpaper.   I learned the hard way.  Not only because I wasted a dollar.  But also because I was all geared up to start on the buffet and then I had to get back in the car and go to a real hardware store and buy real sandpaper.  In mucky work clothes, no less.  I used furniture stripper on the table top (all of this was done outdoors for good ventilation), then sanded it smooth with a power sander.

Buffet with "one scratch"

I taped off the table portion, then primed the bottom (with Kilz) to get rid of the dark colour and musty smell of having been stored out in the garage for who knows how long.  It took three coats of paint.  I used exterior paint, only because we had some left over in a colour that I liked.  I painted with a brush first, and then used a roller overtop to get rid of the lines while they were still wet.

Once I was happy with the paint job on the bottom, I got ready to stain the table.  This is when I realized I had made a big, yucky, lazy mistake.  *Life Lesson #2: USE TOOLS FOR THEIR INTENDED PURPOSE ONLY.*  I had used scotch tape to tape off the edges when I realized we were out of painter's tape.  (What?  Tape can be a tool.)  I wanted to get going on my project and not make YET ANOTHER emergency trip to the hardware store.  But when I went to take off the scotch tape, it left adhesive all over my beautifully stripped and sanded tabletop.  ARGH.  So I took off a lot of it with a cloth soaked in hot vinegar.  But I did have to get the power sander out again to remove all the adhesive.

Now, one might logically conclude that I would make the trip to get painter's tape before staining the top.  But no.  No, I just went ahead and used more scotch tape.  I really don't even know what to say about that.  But it all worked out.  I used a dark stain that you paint on and then wipe off.  And it came out just like I had hoped.  The tape even came off clean this time!

Hutch

So by this time, the weather had taken a turn for the worse and my husband told me I would have to wait for the spring to do the hutch portion of the cabinet.  This will not do.  The cabinet (that I love, mind you) has been taking up my sewing room for long enough - it will not stay there for the winter if I can help it.  SO.  I had already removed the hardware and glass shelving and windows.  The next day of above zero temperatures, we brought the cabinet up the stairs and outside (this time without Papa's help - sorry again, Papa, MAN that thing is HEAVY.  And awkward.) and I gave the whole thing a quick sanding.

"Well begun is half done." - Mary Poppins

Then we brought it inside and sat it on top of the buffet (protected by a drop sheet for priming and painting).  I finished the hutch exactly the same way I did the buffet.  Primer, then 3 coats of paint.  Brushed, then rolled.

Once it was good and dry (well, maybe a little sooner than that... I got impatient), I put all the hardware on.  I really liked the original hardware; I found it it went nicely with the cabinet and I didn't want it to look VERY modern.  But it was pretty yucky looking and covered in the cabinet's original varnish.  So I sanded the pieces down to give it a brushed bronze look.  Some pieces had a very heavy coat of varnish on them, but it came off nicely with hot vinegar.  But smelled gross.  Fair warning.  Then I attached the doors and put in the shelf and windows and it was done!

My fantastical husband even moved the thermostat over several feet to make room for the cabinet.  See where it is now?  Above a light switch makes sense to me.  What on earth do I want a thermostat in the middle of a wall for?
 

Check out all the pretty details that were just hiding in the shadows before:

I'm very happy with the results.  Hence, I started a blog to shout it to the world: "I NOW HAVE A CHINA CABINET!"  And now I want to completely repaint the interior of the house to better co-ordinate with my china cabinet.  It's my new style.

PS - I have an extreme dislike of typos.  Please be sure to point them out to me, and I will correct them.