Hill to DIY On... Ollie's Kitchen

Aaron and I were on our way to church a few weeks ago when I saw this really cute kid's kitchen by the dumpster. I made a mental note to grab it when we got back. The garage was already full of wood from four other projects I took breaks from so Aaron wasn't exactly excited to add to the chaos/ go dumpster diving, but he agreed to it as long as he didn't have to help me.

He had to help me carry it in because it was too heavy. 

I took everything apart and disinfected every piece. For the most part it was in good shape. One piece had a crack in it, and the bottom board needed to be replaced.

Fortunately, we already had wood that was the right width and just needed to be cut down to size. 

I spray painted all the wood with 2x Rustoleum paint and primer in black. I do wish I didn't take that short cut and properly primed and painted separately with regular paint. The coverage wasn't great in areas, smell is strong, and it's really hard to control spray paint. I painted in the garage with the door open so dirt kept getting everywhere. 

I initially bought a paint pen to draw some of the details. It was easy to see the outline of the original so I was trying to paint on top of that; however, the paint pen wasn't fine enough and so I attempted it again by scraping away the paint to reveal the original decals. I also sprayed spray paint the color of aluminum in a cup and used a skewer to help with details.

I'm not happy with how it turned out, but it will work. In the future, I am hoping to find a sticker to stick on top. 

There were a lot of parts, and fortunately, I was able to find the assembly instructions online. It took a while, and I ended up with some extra screws... hoping that doesn't come back to bite me later. Ollie got to help me with this project. He put screws in various holes and then would tell Aaron how to help us. So my assistant had an assistant. He even got his own screw driver to help us. 

I sprayed some black spray paint in a cup and used a paint brush to cover some of the spots missing. Not a perfect solution, because it is very streaky. It gets the job done.

Here is the finished kitchen! Look how nicely it fits under the counter. It's so satisfying when things end up being a perfect fit.

Ollie has been having fun with it. He likes to copy what I am doing. He was even trying to find some soap so he could wash dishes while I was washing dishes.

I found the original kitchen for $150 and it took me $15 to restore it.