Play Kitchen

So about a year and a half ago, Hazel and I were taking a walk when it happened to be trash day in our neighborhood. Three houses down out with the trash was a play kitchen. It was dirty and didn't have any of the drawers, etc., but otherwise was in good shape. And it was large. I called my girlfriend to see if she could come watch Hazel so I could get it into my car and then while waiting for my friend I happened to mention it to the general contractors who were doing our addition at the time. They of course said they would take a coffee break and go get it for me. Then the next day, one of them brought me a cleaner that works great on plastic and helped me clean it up. So here is the kitchen we got for free if it was new:

Source: http://www.kaplantoys.com/

I went to the Dollar Tree and Target and bought various baskets, etc. to fill in the holes and bought the accessories: pots, pans, dishes, food, etc. We have been slowly replacing the plastic food with nice wooden food and have even made some ourselves. Hazel loves playing in her kitchen.

This Christmas Season we seemed to get every toy catalog possible. I would give them to Hazel (as well as any other catalog that came that we didn't want) and she would pretend they were magazines. Well she fell in love with a pink and white wooden kitchen with curtains. I believe it was this one.

Source: http://www.cptoy.com/

Which of course is almost $400. Needless to say she isn't getting her dream kitchen. However she began asking me to make curtains for her kitchen. Well I went to Joann's and picked out some pink and white fabric and then bought more recently when it was on sale--enough to make a table cloth, napkins, curtains for all the openings that shouldn't be there and probably I will make some potholders and an apron to match and possibly some seat covers and cushions. While I was at it, I also printed out new stickers for her kitchen and personalized it. My dear babysitter put them up for me today while Hazel was napping and I was tutoring. So her almost finished kitchen now looks like this:

Yes, these curtains open so you can still see the lovely view they printed on the window!

I added a Command hook for potholders, but since her glove potholder was the one I found in her mess and it didn't have a loop, I hung her pink frying pans instead. Well, actually I hung one of them. When I got home she asked for another hook for the other one. I haven't put it up yet.

Needless to say she is pretty excited over the makeover of her kitchen. It is not her dream kitchen, but it certainly cost less than $400. Oh, and I mentioned to the neighbors who were getting rid of the kitchen that we had taken it (we don't really know them), and they were very happy someone took it since they couldn't find anyone who would. They also gave us their daughter's tricycle when they bought her a bicycle, so Hazel now gets her hand-me-down toys and we are not complaining.

Now if I can just get her to clean her kitchen up. Every time I organize it for her it stays that way until the next day (I do it after she is in bed), but it certainly does not last long. Oh, well she has fun with it! (As you can see we have discovered Starbucks kid size hot chocolate recently, so we washed  the cups so she could pretend to go. I also gave her my empty gift card so she could pay when she goes. I found a cute tutorial to make their coffee cups from felt and will try to adapt it to her hot chocolate and my chai latte.)

She also found a new place for her Caillou figures (and her treehouse family and many other things) to live. While cleaning off the top of the kitchen I took an old broken toy down. Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to fixing it, but she didn't care. My father and I made it this summer for her, but one of the supports gave way. Oh, well, now she has a home for her new toys. I moved the plastic furniture my mother-in-law gave her into it as well.