I have been wanting a little outdoor mud kitchen for Lake for a little while and I knew it was something we could definitely DIY. We got the pallets a few months ago but never found the time to do it because I visioned it would take ages, but in reality, minus the paint drying time, it only took a few hours. So wish I had done it sooner!
I wanted to spend as little pennies as possible and we actually managed to pick the pallets up for free. I think a lot of builders merchants often given them away for free, so if you did want to give it a go, its worth asking around. I mainly got all the accessories from Poundland (Poundland is my new best friend)! and I used some bits we already had. All in all I think it cost me under £5 to make and paint, and under £15 with the accessories!
It was a lot easier than I originally thought it was going to be. I had Adam to help me, so he could take care of the drilling and sanding (I could of done it but it would of taken me way longer!) It took about 3 hours in total, that's without drying time for the paint.
3 x Pallets
Washing up Bowl (Ours was from Poundland)
10cm Screws
Sandpaper or Sander
Exterior paint (We used this soft pink from Wilko (In sale at £4))
Screw Hooks
Optional Accessories:
Oven trays (All from Poundland)
Shelf (£3 IKEA Spice Rack)
Chalkboard (Poundland)
Cacti Plants (Poundland)
Pan set (We already had this but it is from IKEA)
Utencil Set (Same, we already had this but was from IKEA)
We picked up three pallets in total, with the idea of stacking two together then adding one flat against the back. I thought pallets came in one standard size however the builders merchant where we got them from had lots of shapes and sizes to choose from. I choose two the same for stacking and one for the back panel, I tried to make sure the width of them were pretty similar as I didn't want to be cutting them down to size. So These are the pallets I went for:
So before I start, I just want to say in hindsight, I wish I had sanded and painted each pallet first, as this turned out to be a bit fiddly to do once we had fixed it together! But anyway this is how we did it:
Step 1
I drew around the bowl and then got Adam to saw out the shape, about a 1cm smaller than I had drawn so it would hold the bowl in place.
Step 2
Next, we fixed it together using the screws (I say we, I mean, Adam. Adam fixed it together). First he joined the two matching pallets, one on top of the other. Then he screwed this to the back pallet. This literally took a couple of minutes and we tested it, its really sturdy.
Step 3
Sand Sand Sand! OMG did we sand! This took the most amount of time as we wanted it to be super smooth for Lake. We used a mixture of a electric Sander and hand sand paper.
Step 4
Next up it was time to paint. I chose a light shade of pink. Like i mentioned, this was super fiddly to getting to the lower pallet. We gave it two coats, but it was super sunny on the day we did it so it dried in no time.
Step 5
Once it was dry it was time to style it up. My favourite thing to do so this is where I took charge! Obviously we just popped the bowl in first, I wanted this to be removable so we could fill it with water for playtime. Next we added the hooks, we did 5 on the back panel for the utilities and one either edge of the kitchen. I use these to hang bags of toy food. We added the shelf and chalkboard to the back panel, the chalkboard is just held on by hot glue but we screwed the shelf in place. On the shelf we added the Poundland Cacti and a little pot of chalk. We just popped the trays inside the pallets so Lake could use them as a little oven. Lakes Grandad made her a little mud kitchen sign, so we added that to the top panel and thats it. I literally love it! (Lake does too!)
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