Santa's Workshop

So I've been reading this blog by this awesome chick Ana White.  She is a GIRL woodworker who lives in Alaska and makes this awesome furniture. I've fallen in love with about a thousand of her woodworking plans but one in particular stood out to me and that was the kitchen play set (click on link for plans to it on her blog).

We decided to undertake this project for our girls, and at the same time made two more for people my husband works with (figured if we were making one we could go ahead and make three and just do an assembly line).

This was a really fun project.  It got a bit crazy doing the mass production, and I'm not certain I would undertake such a project at Christmas time again, but looking back I did enjoy the time in the garage with my husband.

We went to the hardware store and picked out the materials the weekend before thanksgiving.  We came home and cut the pieces for the sink and stove in no time.  It was when we started mass producing them that things began to slow down a bit.  We spent about three weekends working on the project in December.  Thankfully we had a small space heater in the garage and an insulated garage door.  It was really fun woodworking next to my husband.  I learned a LOT (when I wasn't acting like a miss know it all and would shut up and actually listen...something I'm NOT great at).

Anyhow, the people we made it for at my husbands work wanted pink for their kitchen.  We finished those first and here is what they turned out like.

I decided that I didn't want the one for my girls all pink and since their room has daises in it, I wen with daises on the door rather than the swirly flowers.  The colors pink, purple and white match their room perfectly. 

Here it is Christmas morning waiting for them

We used wooden tires from HL for the knobs on the stove, and purchased the handles from Habitat for Humanity.  They have the larger pulls at Ikea but unfortunately OKC does NOT have an Ikea yet....we used dog bowls for the sinks from Petco and we purchased the cheapest laundry faucet we could find at Home Depot for the sink faucet.  They ran $17 each and was probably the priciest part of all the kitchen other than the wood. Others recommended Ebay for faucets, but I just couldn't find any that were not like $15 for shipping.

I sewed the sink skirt for my girls kitchen out of fabric scraps and my MIL sewed the other two (which turned out MUCH nicer than mine and unfortunately I didn't get a photo of those but they were SUPER cute).  I also made pot holders to go with them and found small wooden spoons at the thrift store to give the girls.  They also got TONS of food and kitchen misc items for Christmas to go with the kitchen.  So far they have had a BLAST playing with it, and I'm really proud of how it turned out!

The finished project in their room!