If you follow me on social media you know my toddler Kiki loves playing with her kitchen and you would have also seen the shop I build her during the first lockdown last year. They were a firm favourite for pretend play for months on end but lately both haven’t been touched much. First I thought she might just not be into playing with her kitchen anymore but then a friend pointed out that play kitchens come in different sizes, toddler size and child size! Did you know that? The kitchen we have, an Aldi middle aisle buy, is just way too low for Kiki to comfortably play with. Time for an upgrade!

Hesters Handmade Home play kitchen with shop

The shop (see that tutorial here) is still a good size but in a quest to have an organised house (will that ever happen?) I want to reduce the floor space the toys take up. There must be a way I could combine the shop and the kitchen into one compact unit.

I started sketching some ideas and came up with a kitchen shop combo on wheels. It incorporates the old play kitchen, I didn’t want to bin it as its still in good nick, with a new shop build from MDF.

I don’t have a step by step tutorial with measurements for you as this build depends on the kitchen you have. See this post more as inspiration what you could do with your play kitchen.

First things first, I had to take the shop apart and take the back splash and counter off the kitchen.

With the shop in pieces I tried a few new stacking options, ways to make the kitchen counter higher and create a bit more storage. I liked the idea of having a crate under the kitchen unit but this made it way too high. I settled on a piece of 5 cm wide square timber under the kitchen legs. This together with the height of the wheels lifts it enough and it creates a new shelf for storage.

A sheet of 12 mm thick 1.22m x 0.61m MDF makes the new back of the kitchen and the back of the shop. I cut the sheet so it is 105 cm tall, a height that looks nice in our room you can of course go higher or lower with your build. As I like to use timber I already have I used the old kitchen backsplash as the base plate. The piece of wood the kitchen and shop rest on. From a second sheet of 12mm MDF I cut the sides of the box that will become the shop and glued and nailed them in place. I did the same for the shelving. The bottom two shelves are the dept of the shop (23 cm) and the higher two shelves are on half the dept (12cm), this makes it easier to play with .

The square piece of timber that gives the shop more height is screwed to the base plate and I attached the kitchen to the timber with angle brackets. The last thing to do was to screw the swivel wheels (7cm heigh) to the bottom of the base plate.

To make all the old bits and new bits of wood work together to whole thing got a coat of paint, I used some leftover Rust-Oleum cupboard paint in Steamed Milk. Love this colour and it is the one I used in my real kitchen. I haven’t painted the shop yet, I rather like the raw MDF but I might paint it at one point as Kiki has already requested it to be pink, suprise suprise :)

The new backsplash is made from two Zazous vinyl floor tiles, I had them leftover from a previous project. I wanted to add a more ‘grown up’ tap too so I picked up an attach anywhere outdoor tap. Make sure you buy the tap and a 90 degree elbow wall plate so you can just screw the tap to the back splash. A Falcon ware enamel bowl makes the perfect sink, as it is loose she can just pick it up to create more counter space or use it to collect bits and bops. For the cooker I simply painted two black circles the size of her the play pans and added a little shelf above the backsplash tiles that finishes the whole kitchen off.

What do you think? Pretty cute right! Kiki can now do her shopping and when she has all her ingredients walk to the other side of the unit and cook up a storm :D

The shelves of the shop are perfect for all the wooden groceries, there is space for her till and a little shelf for her bank cards (as in old store cards she likes to play with) The top of the kitchen is perfect for bulkier items like the coffee machine, cups and mixer.

The kitchen and shop now take up a lot less space in my house, it is a way better height for this tall toddler to play with and it looks super cute with the real tap, tiled back splash and the enamel sink.

Are you inspired to give your play kitchen an upgrade too?