Monet in Minneapolis

I haven't blogged for a while but not because nothing has been happening. I"ve been in MN visiting Daughter of, Son in Law of and Miss T. I do have some pictures that I will share in the next few days, but I'm starting with The Kitchen.

I wanted to make a play kitchen for MIss T. Sure, we could have bought one but I wanted to build it. So, that was the project I had in mind when I left. Something like this one. Cute, isn't it. Looks simple. I can do that.

But then, Daughter of and I started to look at what we had and look at pictures and, well, one thing led to another and we thought - hey! why not base it on Monet's kitchen from Giverny? Because why? Well, for one thing, why not. And for another, the tiles are so cool. I mean, who wouldn't rather have this one?



I could mention here that I'm insane. I have my father's voice in my head saying 'no such word as can't'. And, of course, Daughter of, has my voice in her head saying 'you can do anything you set your mind to.' Put us together on a project and it's a natural as rain for a simple Ikeahack kitchen to turn into Monet's kitchen.

So that's what we are doing. And I say 'are doing' because it's still a work in progress. We could have finished the first sad little play kitchen in the week we had, but the more ambitious Monet Play Kitchen will take a little more work. IOW, I'm going back this summer to complete it.

I know you want to see pictures but I first just want to say that this is the most fun I've had in ages. And it's not done. You are seeing a partially completed kitchen. If we'd had just one more day.....

This is the main body of the kitchen, the country sink, the basket drawers and the stove, which will be to the left, plus the beautiful delft tile backsplash (modpodge, Photoshop, and a book with cd from the Amsterdam airport). The stove will be black with brass escutcheons and trim on 2 doors and brass knobs on the top. The faucet for the sink is also brass and the area below the country sink (a melamine bowl from Target) will have a little curtain on it. The counter over the baskets and around the sink will be marble(ish). And the whole will be painted a lovely light color - that's primer you see now.











There will be a little dish rack above the sink (from a disassembled Ikea dish drainer that I brought home to finish here) and hanging copper pans and jelly molds (sprayed Ikea kidstuff) above the stove.

Oh and the refrigerator.... we don't know what Monet had, of course, so we improvised. It will look like a piece of furniture with panelled door and fancy schmancy footed base.






We had no idea what we were doing most of the time. The fancy base on the refrigerator is cut down from an old tv stand. We figured things out as we went along, which takes time. I mean it's all very well to imagine the final product, but how to get to that takes a lot of.... we had to substitute trial and error for actual skill. But what a lot of fun.

I'll blog the final kitchen in the summer when it's finished.