Play Kitchen in Time for Christmas

I decided I was going to build a kitchen for my nieces for Christmas. The whole process started on November 11th and ended on December 24th with a few things needing to be fixed up in the new year. Hopefully my steps can help someone to build one for a loved one.

Step 1: The Original Sketch

This was my original idea and the finished product stayed mostly true to it, aside form the window and cabinets.

Step 2: Drafting

I was wanting a project to keep my drafting skills up to snuff, so I decided to make a full set of architectural style "shop drawings" for this project. They are included here so anyone can try and build one of their own.

Step 3: All Set Up for Cutting

I got everything set up in the garage for doing my cuts. MDF is nice to cut but causes a big mess. It's also super toxic, so if you use it, make sure you are wearing a mask. (BONUS: Giant connect four board in the background. No build description for that one unfortunately)

Step 4: Cutting Optimization

I used on online program to optimize my cutting and minimize wasted material. This is one of 4 sheets. I used http://www.optimalon.com/index.htm and it worked really well. The only thing I didn't like was that when naming my pieces, I could only input up to 15 characters. This caused problems down the road when I had pieces with similar names and couldn't figure out where they were supposed to go.. Other than that, I would recommend the program. If you plan to use my plans, I would recommend re-optimizing it for yourself and naming the pieces properly.

Step 5: My Beaver. the Project MVP

just a quick shot of a tool that helped me out a lot on this project. My grandpa's old beaver table saw. the bladeis a bit wobbly, but it was a lifesaver for cutting multiple pieces of the same width.

Step 6: Progress!

A bit of a jump forward here... My operation moved inside as the unheated garage was much too cold for the assembly phase (O Canada!). There was a ton of cutting. 4 4'x8' sheets of MDF were cut into 98 pieces. As mentioned before, I had some trouble naming them. Another problem was that I flipped between naming and numbering the pieces. Unfortunately, there were some duplicate numbers as the numbering for pieces from each panel started at 1.

The cutting took approximately 2.5 hours per sheet. 4 sheets = 10 hours of cutting.

Step 7: A Fridge Is Born

look... a fridge! I got some plexiglass from work and used it for shelves in the fridge. The door is yet to come.

Step 8: Oven

the shell of a oven is born!

Step 9: Mmmmmmmm Routered Edges

This picture shows a bit more progress on the main part of the kitchen. I was most pleased with the Ogee edge on the counter top. I LOVE my rounter!

Step 10: More Routered Edges

Yes, I love it..

Step 11: Drawer and Hardware

I picked up some bottom mounted drawer rails so I wouldn't have to finish the inside of the cabinets in order to hang side mounted drawer slides.

I was really happy with the handles I picked out. They gave the kitchen a nice retro feel. Those will go great with the paint scheme!

Step 12: The Pièce De Résistance

This is, in my opinion, the best part of the whole shebang. I must give credit to Redditor u/sixstringhook as he gave me the idea to use EL wire and taught me how to wire it up properly. Each burner and the oven element are controlled by switches on the front of the oven. A piece of grey plexiglass sits on top of the stove to look like a ceramic cooktop. I really love how it came out.

Step 13: Boom Colour!

Things are really starting to come together now. I chose a retro colour scheme. Girlfriend found a sink and some taps at a local restore (used hardware store).

Step 14: Hardware On, Fridge in Place

Things are starting to really come together. Good thing.. it's December 23rd..

Step 15: In Place, Ready to Be Played With!

Here it is, in all it's glory. Ready to be played with!! I'm very proud of the work I did and I can't wait for the girls to get to play with it.