Wednesday 25 January 2017

Ikea Kids Kitchen Makeover

If you are the parent, carer, guardian or other of a small person then there is a 50/50 chance that you are the owner of an IKEA Duktig kitchen.
Every playgroup that I have visited with Sofia or play date she has had she has spent most of the time there ignoring all forms of company and playing with the toy kitchen so for us it was a no brainier that we would get her one for Christmas.
Despite the IKEA kitchen being value for money, sturdy and popular, I just knew that the standard kitchen was never going to do. With that in mind I set about gathering some ideas and armed with my mood board off I went to B&Q. Find out how I transformed Sofia's bog standard IKEA play kitchen into a kitchen prettier than mine!
                                 
I started off my removing all of the items from the box that I wanted to spray gold(handles, feet, cooker, washing up bowl, hanging hooks and pole. I laid them out on cardboard and gave them each an even coat of gold spray paint. Once dry this had to be repeated a couple of times to get an even finish.

Next I removed the oven, microwave and cupboard doors from the packaging and sanded each one down on both sides. Not a full on sanding but enough to take the sheen off the wood and give the paint a better base. Once done, we covered the edges of the windows on the microwave and oven doors with masking tape to avoid paint ending up on the Perspex. Now the bit I was dreading, paint one side of each door and leave to dry, repeat another 2 times and then do the same for the other sides so that both sides of each door have had 3 coats and you are happy with the finish. Don't forget the edges too!

I found covering the 'work surface' quite therapeutic. We opted for a wood effect sticky back vinyl. I measured how much roughly I would need(don't forget to allow for the overlap) and laid the work surface down. Slowly peel back a little of the backing paper and align with the wooden work surface. Once happy, slowly start to smooth the vinyl over the wood using a clean tea towel until the top is completely covered. Now turn the work surface over and where the holes for the washing up bowl and cooker are, you should see the sticky side of the vinyl. Carefully cut a 'x' through the exposed vinyl, towards the edges and then fold over so it adheres to the underside of the work surface. Once completed, it should look a little something like this...

Now the easy part, following the instructions in the box put the kitchen together!

I had a piece of foam board which I covered with a white washed exposed brickwork wallpaper sample and then attached that to the back of the kitchen using tacks. To finish of the look I purchased 3 battery operated push on lights and using the adhesive pads they come with, attached them to the underside of the microwave and hey presto....a kitchen fit for a princess!

All of the links to or info on products I used are below.
If you have up cycled a children's IKEA kitchen, I'd love to see it!

M xx
       

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