All kids love play kitchens – but let's face it most of them are drab looking at best, or downright ugly at worst. But it doesn't have to be that way – if you don't mind doing a bit of DIY. One of our very own here at HELLO! has proved how easy it can be, by remodelling the popular DUKTIG Ikea kitchen. The outcome is incredible, and the best thing is that the extra work will cost you less than £30.
As most of you may know, the original play kitchen comes in just one colour, light brown with white doors, and the accessories, such as the sink and handles, come in black. At just £60, it is a great present for any child – it encourages role play and means endless hours of fun for the whole family - but let's be honest, it'll probably clash with your home décor.
Well, need not worry, as transforming it into the most elegant play kitchen ever seen is incredibly easy, even if you're a DIY dunce. All you will need are a few spray cans of your colour of choice and a bit of patience.
SEE: Our website editor's step-by-step guide
Our website editor, who claims to be awful at any creative/DIY task, recently transformed her son's kitchen ahead of his birthday and here she explains the process:
I'm awful at any DIY task, it's just not in me. I've tried knitting, making rugs, embroidery, sewing… every single time I've given up (after spending a lot of money on all of the tools, of course) so when I suggested to my husband that we hack the Ikea kitchen, he refused to help me and told me that our son would eventually ruin it so there wasn't much point in doing it. I am sure he told me that to save me the hassle but it actually made me want to do it more, and thank god I did.
After heading to Ikea to buy our latest piece of furniture (let's be honest, it's not like you can pack it away every night), I decided what colour I wanted the kitchen to be. I had several ideas, but I ended up going for the "cheapest" one as I really didn't want to spend too much money on hacking it and I wanted to keep it as simple and elegant as possible. In the end I went for a crisp white kitchen with gold accents.
I bought two white spray cans (Rust-Oleum, white gloss) and one gold one (Rust-Oleum pure gold), all three cans added up to less than £30, bargain! The whole process was easy from the very beginning. I started painting the pieces that come in light brown, as I knew they would take up most of the spray. They needed to be sprayed twice on both sides, so always best to start with those and make sure they are perfect. I then painted the white pieces, which definitely need one coat as it's a different white to the gloss white spray you will use on the other pieces. Once those were painted, I left them to dry and moved on to the pieces I was going to paint gold: the handles, the sink, the tap, the side of the hob, the legs and the kitchen utensils that come in black.
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This part was super easy as they are very small parts compared to the actual body of the kitchen. All pieces were given two coats as I had a lot of left over gold spray and I wanted to make sure the end results was perfect.
The whole process, including dry time, was less than a day's work. The hardest part, as always, is the assembly, but if you like a challenge and most of your furniture is from Ikea, then you’ll be fine.
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As you can see, the end product is incredible and totally worth it. My son's new kitchen goes perfectly with the rest of the house décor, it is elegant and most importantly, he LOVES it and loves playing with it, especially the working hob lights. Who says children's toy can't be chic?