With all of this lovely sunshine, lockdown and if you’re lucky enough to have a garden; do you ever just find yourself at a loss for what to with your little ones? Something you can leave them to play with while you recharge? You look online and all of the trampolines, sandpits, pools, etc are either sold out with panic buying or they’re just too expensive.
It can be frustrating and it has been for a lot of us but here we have Megan from Wales a hairdresser/beauty therapist and Eti a builder from Samoa and New Zealand who with their two children ages 8 and 5 have built this amazing mud kitchen. We can only imagine the hours of fun it will bring. Let’s see how it’s done…
What did you do?
Step 1- Find a good place in your garden to put it
Step 2- gather any wood you have available in the garden or from the shop. I used whatever we had in the garden and it was 3×2 timber and feather edge
Step 3- measure how big u want your mud kitchen I.e. height, width and length
Step 4- make a back panel out of the 3×2 timber & feather edge then cut the back panel to the correct size, mine was about 1500mm long x 800mm high.
Step 5- fix the back panel into the fence & off the ground, making sure it is secure
Step 6 – then make up two side panels out if the feather edge wood about 600wide and 600 long and fix them in place.
Step 7 – move on to making the base panel which is the work top for the mud kitchen, I made that out of 3×2 & feather edge and screw in
Step 8- measure and cut the holes into the work top to fit your washing up bowls in you can do one bowl or two and you can use either plastic or medal which ever you prefer
Step 9 – make the hob for the cooker- place into the middle of the work top and cut two feather edge boards to about 400mm long and place one at the back and one at the front leaving agape of 100mm from the edge of the work top and screw all in place
Step 10- grab 4 old CD’s and place them into the middle of the work top and screw in
Step 11- you will need 5 milk bottle lids and u can screw them into place either on the top or on the front up to u. The milk top lids will turn just like buttons on the cooker
Step 12- make the oven- I used 25mm x 50mm timber for this, underneath the hob make a frame for a square box about 300mm x400mm and screw in it should be about the same width as the hob
Step 13- grab 2 hinges and a magnet off a cupboard door and make an oven door up and fix on
Step 14- you can use a curtain rail as a towel holder and I used plant planters for the kids to put plates and folks etc in I attached them on using screws
Step 15- paint the hole of the mud kitchen 2 coats
Step 16 – paint the CD’s and the milk lids black and the handle door x 2 coats of paint
Step 17 – find any plastic cups, plates, folks, knives, spoons, tea and coffee holders etc you don’t need and any plastic food
Let the kids enjoy
What’s your next project idea:
My next project is making a seating area, a brick fire pit and a brick BBQ
How are you finding being housebound with kids so far?
The lock down has had its ups and downs, good days where we have loved every minute spending more time with the kids and playing with them and their toys and sports and bad days where we wish we could just go see family and go places. But over all we have loved to have a bit of time off work and busy schedules to spend with the kids
Tell us what you think about the Housebound with Kids Facebook community. How has it helped you?
I have loved seeing the tips of how to teach the kids and making it more fun for them, we have used few of the ideas already.
We would like to see some challenges for the kids to get involved in against each other I.e. sports challenges.
