Kitchen redo

I know, I know, you were expecting THE kitchen. Well, I got a little sidetracked along the way. When the fam moved out, they took most of the toys with them, since we had acquired all of Reid's age appropriate toys while he lived with us. The last time they came down, I had picked up a Thomas the Tank Engine train table off of Craig's List for him to play with here. I am a softy, though, and let them take it back. I was back to square one in the toy department. Meg had mentioned that he was taking some interest in Legos, so I started another search, this time for a Lego table. This was on a Tuesday and they were coming in on Friday. I found one on the far side of Lewisville and when Kenny got home that night, we made the drive over thru that wonderful Grapevine construction. He loves that boy!

I am not the indulgent person I appear to be. My kids rarely got new toys if it wasn't their birthday or Christmas because I can't stand a lot of kid clutter in the form of purchased fun. I am not, however, above taking advantage of another's weakness in that area. This woman must have been in the business of buying her kids's love, judging from her garage. I have never seen so many toys! I can't imagine what her house looked like. I'm sure she helped keep Fisher-Price and Little Tykes solvent. There was only a small trail to follow. I asked if she was having a garage sale and she sighed, "Someday..". Hmmm, maybe I could help her out. I dug around and saw a kitchen in great shape (all her things looked well cared for, or maybe the kids didn't have enough time to play with them all). I made her an offer and came out with the kitchen, the table and a chair, and a couple of bags full of pots, pans and dishes. Hooty hooo! One minor problem that we were able to overcome, shoving that kitchen into the backseat of the car. Didn't think it was going to happen but faced with the prospect of another 45 minute drive back out there we were able to summon the strength.

There was some pink "wallpaper" on the kitchen so I needed to do a quick renovation to make it a little more boy friendly. Before any of you start on me about any stereotype, that's sexist, blah, blah, please note the obvious; I bought a kitchen for my grandson. He has been cooking with me since he could stand on a chair. I don't want him to have a pink kitchen because I didn't like the pink '90's wallpaper look and I didn't want him to NOT play with it when he becomes older because it looked like something a girl with bad taste would play with. And I like to redecorate, even if it is only a preformed, plastic kitchen.

cooking with his Mamie

I headed out the next day after work to find contact paper and plastic food. I struck out on both. What I ended up with was 2 packages of notecards and double stick tape. I liked the design on the cards so I cut them down, matched them up and taped them to the "walls". I made up some modge podge and did a finish on it. The clock had some faded flowery stuff on it, too. I remembered having some old cd labels and was able to pull them out, find a clock template online and photoshop it to fit the label. Viola', a clock face.

As I said, no plastic food, so I made some of my own using felt I had ordered. You are probably wondering how I happen to have everything I need for these projects (cd labels, felt, etc). I have a dirty little secret. Not only do I hoard furniture in my attic, I hoard craft stuff any where I can cram it. If you've been here, you know my house is always clean and clutter free. Here it the evidence of the ugly underbelly of my obsessions.

there is another one full of fabric. I know, scary.

Enough of the dark side.

I made felt food, finished the kitchen and it was all done when Reiderbug got here. He loved it. Cooked, washed dishes and fed Babbo all day. It was well worth the effort and, no, I am not letting him take it home. This time.

He'll get the Lego table next time they come. I don't want to be overindulgent!