Summers coming! Here is an inexpensive way to keep the kids busy this summer – just add mud!

I will admit that this project is a few years old and made well before I thought I would have a blog. So please bear with me. The reason I decided to share it was that even after few years my daughter still loves it and plays with it almost every day. It has withstood lots of playing time from her and her friends and our unpredictable weather – it may have been made on the cheap with a couple pallets and some extra pieces of lumber we had laying around but it is still viable and going strong!

How To:

The back of it is made with a pallet. I made the front 4 pieces (painted blue) from 2x4s. There are also 2 more 2×4’sattached to the pallet. The top and shelf are made from a pallet pieces that were cut in half screwed into the 2×4’s. And a (old) 2×2 was attached to the top, to help keep the cut pallet pieces from popping up and to add a lip so stuff didn’t fall off the back, because there was a gap between the boards. !

After it was all put together, I pulled out some old paint we had and painted it. The “burners” are circles that I traced, I used a small plate and painted them in with some different color paint. The I took a black marker to make the “EAT” and clock on the back added some cup hooks and kitchen utensils and buckets from the dollar store and old pans. and done!

How’s it holding up?

Very well! I didn’t make this to last forever. I knew that maybe 5 years tops would be all we would get out of it, and even at 3 years I am still amazed how well it has held up, which is pretty good considering that I didn’t seal the wood (other than the painted areas) and that it is usually encrusted in mud. It has also been moved around our back yard a few times without falling apart. I have had to raise it on bricks because she has a growth spurt, and I have had to do a little maintenance – mainly using a black marker to fix the “EAT” and clock and I had to re-screw one board on the top. But not bad considering that all I do to clean it is hose it off.

The picture above was taken the day before I posted this. I didn’t do anything to it to make it look better-or worse! This is how it usually looks. I noticed that we have to touch up the paint and my daughter asked if she could paint the slats, she really does like to personalize!

If you are thinking about making a mud kitchen for your kids, I hope this gives you some inspiration!

Have a great day!

–Dawn