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When your husband won’t let you renovate your real kitchen, what do you do? The next best thing, of course! Just kidding. I haven’t asked J about a kitchen reno…yet. 😉
We’ve been talking about getting Liam a play kitchen for quite some time. J’s parents have one at their house and Liam is drawn to it every time we visit. I wasn’t exactly sure which one to purchase, so I did some extensive research (and spent lots of time browsing on Pinterest) to see what was out there. I learned quickly what I didn’t want: a kitchen primarily made of cheap plastic, bright colors, anything too frilly or something that would take up too much floor space in our home. After looking at all our options, we decided to go with either completely building a kitchen from scratch out of a couple of old cabinets, or overhauling an existing kitchen. J ran a few numbers and we figured that the costs would end up being similar after purchasing everything but the time commitment would be much less if we did the latter. I looked at a number of other IKEA play kitchen makeovers and pieced together a picture of what I wanted ours too look like. We left Liam with a babysitter while we made the 4-hour round trip to our closest IKEA to pick up their Duktig play kitchen. Added some paint and a little elbow grease and here’s what we ended up with. Isn’t she gorgeous?
Here’s a quick rundown of what we did. To see the original Duktig IKEA kitchen, assembled unaltered, you can find it here.
We sanded down the countertop, stained it with wood stain (special walnut color) and finished it with a coat of polyurethane (semi-gloss). We also painted any natural wood-colored pieces with white spray paint.
We used gold spray paint to cover all of the plastic pieces, including the sink and faucet, the edging around the stove, the adjustable kitchen feet, and the bar and hooks underneath the top section. 
J thought it was a little overkill, but I found these drawer pulls to replace the plastic ones that came with the kitchen. We painted them gold also before installing them. I really think they give more authenticity to the kitchen’s more sophisticated look.
And we added these
I knew that I wanted some sort of backsplash, so we also bought some frosted glass subway tiles to use. J rigged up an extra board behind the kitchen, measured and installed the tiles onto it. Just like the real deal. 
It’s everything that I’d hoped. Gender-neutral, sophisticated and fairly realistic. Liam loves it and so do we! He bakes us cookies, brings us tea and makes the craziest meal combinations on the stove. Good thing we only have to pretend to eat them. What do you think? Have you designed or made-over a play kitchen yourself? I’d love to hear about it!
That’s adorable!!! And funny because we are in the middle of renovating our kitchen with ikea cabinets, ha!
How fun! I love Ikea. Will you be sharing photos online once you’re done renovating?
This is just adorable and gorgeous! The personal touches are perfect!
That is the cutest thing ever! How fun!
This is adorable! Great ideas. =)
LOVE THIS! SO WELL DONE…I’D LOVE THIS AS MY KITCHEN.
That is super cute! I can’t wait till my son is older and I can do this too!!
What an adorable upgrade! I just got the same IKEA kitchen for my 2 year old daughter, London, and she absolutely loves it. These upgrades take it to the next level. Like you, i didn’t want some plastic set in obnoxious colors!
Oh my gosh this is the cutest thing ever!!! I am definitely going to be bookmarking this to do this for my kids! I love how lifelike it is and the endless possibilities for their imagination, as well as mimicking you in the kitchen!
Very nice! Love the modern look!
Are you kidding, this is INCREDIBLE! Fully jealous of Liam’s set up!
How much paint did you use?
We used one can of gold spray paint and probably about one can of white spray paint also. We were working on a second project at the same time that required white spray paint, so I don’t know exactly.
This is so cute! The stain you used for the countertop – do you think the cabinets will stain like that if sanded? I wanted to try to do this except with cherry cabinets rather than white. Thanks!
Hi Lisa!
I think it depends on which parts you want stained. Any of the natural wood-colored pieces, like the countertop, could be sanded down and stained. The white pieces, like the cabinet doors, I’m not sure if those are wood also but painted white, or if they’re something different. You could always try sanding a small spot in the back or underneath the bottom to see what happens and then go from there. You could also always pain it any color you want. Hope that helps!
Hi
I’m just in the middle of customising the duktig kitchen for my daughters birthday. Can you tell me what wood stain you used for the counter top? Also did you use a power sander?
Thanks
Pippa
Hi Pippa!
It was a dark walnut stain (I can’t remember the brand offhand) with an enamel finish over the top. We did use a power sander on the counter. It worked really well and didn’t take much time, although you can see a little bit on the corner where I think we didn’t get quite deep enough for the stain to get as rich a color as everywhere else. Hope this helps!
Amazing job!! I like it a lot. It looks much real than the standard one. Congrats.
Hi! This looks amazing! I am DIY-ing one for my son’s birthday at the moment and want to paint the faucet and sink in chrome metallic spray paint. I was wondering how well spray paint covered the plastic components (how has it held up to being played with?) and does the faucet still work once painted, i.e. does it turn? I was looking at it wondering if the paint sticks it up.
Hi Anita! I felt like the paint did a pretty good job covering the plastic pieces overall. If I look really closely, I can see where I messed up, either by not covering it evenly or if I touched it before the paint was completely dry. We painted these pieces on a really hot day and I was probably overly anxious about getting done. You’ll have to spray all the round pieces in shifts, since you can only do one angle/side at a time. We painted the faucet separately from the sink. The faucet pieces still turn, which is great. I definitely recommend using a finishing spray over the metallic paint, just to give you an extra layer of protection against hard play. We’ve had our kitchen for almost 2 years, with lots of play dates and it’s held up really well. The thing that I think has the most wear are the hooks that clip onto the bar for the cooking utensils – Liam yanks them off kind of hard, so I think it’s scraped off a little paint here and there. But otherwise I’ve been really impressed at how durable it’s been.
You are one impressive Mama. So cute!