This was our first collaborative “choo cha” project between my husband and I. My husband loved assembling the play kitchen for our son and I enjoyed sourcing all the materials. We made it for him when he was just over a year old and he is 3 now and is still “cooking.” There are many great posts about play kitchens.

I found an old teak like end table that someone was throwing out. It was a perfect size for our space, excellent condition and it was free.  We reassembled the drawer and added a hinge at the bottom and a magnetic closure at the top so that the door could open like an oven door. I found some metal pot steamers and stainless steel bowl at the dollar store. The faucet is a wooden banana stand.

My husband got some real faucet knobs and the white circles under the elements are door knob protectors from home depot. We added a piece of wood to the back of the end table. It was painted black to give it an industrial feel and a battery operated push light was added on the bottom shelf.

I really wanted to find a little clock but all I could find at Goodwill at the time was an alphabet toy which had an abacus and clock attached.Wooden pots and pans are from pottery barn and the metal kitchen set is from Ikea. Check out the mini-coffee maker (Goodwill, again).

Handmade play vegetables and oven mitts were made by me.

• Download pattern for the oven mitts. (PDF, 104 K)