Honey Soup

Austin turned two last week which meant a time for celebration! A day at the farm, standing in rain and feeding goats while passing out cakes in ice cream cones will forever be a day that we thoroughly enjoyed in our minds.

The big present this year was a kitchen. As anybody who knows me can tell you, I have some blogs that I like to read. I am in no way a huge blog reader, but I do have about 12 that I follow. One woman has four children and a couple of Christmas' ago she went about getting them a play kitchen. I don't think Austin was even born at this time, but she had linked to some DIY kitchens that I fell in love with. I have just been waiting for the right time to put this craft into action.

About four years ago Chris and I "invested" in a little computer desk for about $100. This would be my work desk for the next year as I worked out of our friends Caitlin and Adam's house who we were living with at the time. I love to reminisce about that time as it is one of my very favorite times of my life. We lived in this itty bitty mountain town in an itty bitty house (700 sq. ft? 900? Who cares, it was small.) I'm not sure if straight wall could be found in the place as everything had settled at strange angles. There was the four of us adults and two (later three) labs. When the snow starts falling in end of Sept., it doesn't stop until the beginning of June. Many days I would not get out of my sweat pants as I could not get myself to take off the warm clothes I had on in exchange for clean cold clothes.

So, the desk. It was so small that my laptop hung off the front. I placed it in the middle of our friend's living room so I could be close to the wood burning stove and I ran a little company from the middle of this little mountain town of 200 people. When the snow kept coming, I'd shuffle out in somebody's large boots with a broom and bang it on the satellite so I could continue to have phone and Internet service to reach my clients and help them run their software. Our dogs would be laying around the house and it wasn't uncommon to have some neighbor dogs in too as they all kind of just ran around together and would go in to whatever house to get warm. I always laughed when I thought about if my clients could see me.

That desk followed us into our even smaller house across the street from our friends, then to another house, and finally to this one. During my last nesting phase it finally became an entryway desk instead of the computer desk because I was tired of not having a place to rest my arms as I typed. I know, I'm lazy. To get a good "before" shot, I had to go back a ways. Here it is behind me as I put together our awesome stroller that was a gift from the above mentioned amazing friend, Caitlin. There was also a matching filing cabinet that is not shown in this picture.

And here it is now!

I can't tell you how proud I am of this little kitchen.

We turned the whole desk upside down and used the shelf risers as the bottom posts. The cabinet became the refrigerator and the filing drawer front became the door for the oven. I went to a local recycled hardware store and got:

1. The counter top ($7.50)
2. The faucet ($5)
3. The refrigerator handle ($2.50)
4. The oven handle ($2.50)
5. The curtain rod ($2.50)
6. The hinges for the oven door ($2)
7. The shelf hooks ($2)

At a new hardware store I got:

1. 2 magnetic latches ($2 each)
2. Dog bowl for sink ($11)
3. Oven knobs ($2.50)
4. Oven rack which is a dish drain ($6)

So, including tax the whole thing came out to be around $55 which I felt pretty good about!

The existing things we had around the house was the peg board, spray paint, various screws and nails, green basket, blue material and peg board hooks. My sister provided us with the copper covered aluminum that she had in pre-existing materials when we accidentally broke the glass oven door that matched the refrigerator. At the time, we didn't know it was glass and thought it was a heavy plastic. Now, knowing that it's glass we might replace the refrigerator door with the same aluminum so that our two year old doesn't accidentally brake it. For now though, it's remaining glass.

My favorite features of the kitchen are the working sink handles, the pegboard that allows for rearranging of hooks and such as needed (we have already added one since these pictures as a hook for his apron), and the oven rack that pulls out. I also just love the overall look of the kitchen! As Austin grows we will just be able to replace the current legs with some taller ones to make the height right for him (and brother Oliver!).

The project was really fun to take on with Chris and Jenni helping (and by helping, I mean mostly doing all of the work as I sat and directed) and Grandma and Nana helped stock the kitchen with food, tools, and an apron.

The first day that Austin and I were playing with the kitchen we were making soup. I asked what was in the soup and he replied with glee that it was Honey! He happily ladled out bowl after bowl of honey soup that tasted most delicious coming from his little kitchen!