I've always wanted a wooden play kitchen for The Boy, but they're incredibly pricey and we just don't have the space for one. It's such a shame because I know he'd love one and would spend hours pretending to cook on it, just as we do in real life. But I can't magic more space or money so unfortunately, I had resigned myself to no cooker for him.

And then I saw a tweet from @Scrapbookerry showing a Pinterest idea she'd seen to use a side table and turn it into a play kitchen. The idea originally came from a site called Ikea Hackers. So I repinned the idea on Pinterest, and in my brain, and we set off for the car boot sale to sell our unwanted treasures. After we'd packed up, we wondered around and with my beady eyes, I managed to spot this little gem, which I bargained the guy down to £3 for!

As there was no time like the present, we nipped over to the nearest DIY store and bought some white paint, a row of hooks and some knobs.

The next step was to sand it all over to remove the top layer of the black paint and smooth any sharp edges. Then to start on the many coats of white paint (four in total) I needed to cover the black.

Next I measured out and drew four circles on the top of the cupboard to make four cooker rings. These were painted black with a silver ring around the outside of them.

The door was removed, a plastic plate used to draw around and my husband cut out that shape from the door. I sanded the edges, painted both sides of the door, and then used masking tape to edge a piece of perspex we had lying around, and superglued it onto the inside of the door.

Finally my husband drilled five holes along the front to attach the knobs that I had painted silver, and screwed the hook unit onto the side of the cupboard.

Cost:

• table – £3
• paint – £8
• knobs – £4
• hooks – £4
  • Total = £19

  

I bought the saucepans & utensils for £14.

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