And we realized that the toy chest we bought from an estate sale months ago to paint into a play kitchen for Elliot was shelved until spring when we could sand & varnish outside... do it properly, blah, blah, blah. This seemed fine until it was the Friday before Christmas and we had no big fun toy for Elliot. Ben's Heywood gene kicked into overdrive as he declared he was stealing my paint project and going to build the kitchen. It would be done by Christmas morning. No worries that we had a thousand other errands and fun we had planned to do during this crucial time that was now to be spent under heavy construction. After several trips to Home Depot, Target, Marshalls, and the scrap pile at Jamie's, finally Santa's Workshop was created in our Den of Slack. Ventilation be damned! Noise in the middle of the night? Who cares! Elliot will have a kitchen! And by golly, it is going to have running water and heat!
Here is the bare toy box, with the lid already removed and the drop cloth in place.
Santa's Workshop has already sanded & primed, getting ready for the tough stuff...anyone spot Ben's favorite "tool" to accompany him on all projects? Its in the picture, upright on the left.
Fast forward after documentary picture slacking and here is the finished product. The oven door opens. The faucets are real (and Kohler! just kidding). The sink is removable and the lid still opens for storage. The only painting I was allowed to do (from a project that was not meant to be 3-D or this cool, and a paint-pretend kitchen) was the burner knobs, and I was micro-managed! But it made it to the tree before Christmas morning.
And Elliot went to work right away!
