A Mud Kitchen Makeover For Under £20

For Erin’s 4th birthday we bought her a mud kitchen. She’s getting to an age now where she’s got everything that we could think of as a ‘big’ present but we wanted to get something that she would get a lot of use out of. Of course, the beginning of the year meant that the mud kitchen didn’t get played with all that much, thanks to the bad weather. But, it’s an idea toy for the garden and we wanted to make sure we made the most of it.

There was really nothing wrong with the mud kitchen to start with. We bought it new from Studio and it was really lovely. It came with some accessories and I was able to add some extras to it as well, such as plant pots from Ikea and some cheap kitchen equipment. However, over the past couple of months we have been working on giving the back area of our garden a big makeover and I wanted to spruce up the mud kitchen at the same time.

After clearing out the back of the old shed we found a pallet that had been there for many, many years. I had the idea of either attaching this to the back of the mud kitchen, or just placing it behind and giving it a good paint to freshen it up. After painting the pallet it seemed silly to not to the mud kitchen to match, especially as I had so much paint left over. The new colour really brightened everything up and made it look so different.

I wanted the pallet to be somewhere to store extra bits and pieces for the mud kitchen. We had recently acquired quite a lot of different kitchen bits from garden clearances/ sales locally and we picked up a lot for absolutely no cost at all. I added some screw hooks to various parts of the pallet, mainly the sides, so that Erin could hang bits there.

I haven’t added any to the top yet as Erin can’t really reach over yet but this might be an idea for older or taller children.

Although we had lots of bits and pieces to use with the mud kitchen there was a few things missing. Erin only had wooden spoons that had gone a bit mouldy so I replaced these with some wooden spoons and spatulas from Asda. At only 40p each they were a bargain and I know that they will last longer than the wooden version.

Although Erin’s mud kitchen does have space underneath to store items, as well as in a cupboard with a door that closes, some things just didn’t fit very well. I bought a plastic storage box with a lid so that we could place it next to the kitchen to store any additional accessories. This also meant that Erin could swap and change what she wanted to use easily without having absolutely everything out at once.

We really didn’t do a lot to the mud kitchen but what we did do made a massive difference. The paint especially was a big change and this actually could have cost us less but no where local had smaller tubs of paint. I didn’t want to wait for something to be delivered and we don’t drive so I couldn’t go elsewhere to get something. We were also lucky with the free pallet and the free accessories we’d picked up on various different dates.

Price breakdown

• Pallet – free
• Hooks – £2
• Paint – £11
• Kitchen utensils – £1.60
• Cable ties – £1
• Storage box – £3

As you can see, we were well under £20 for the mud kitchen makeover. Had we been able to get a smaller tub of paint (there is about 3/4 left still) we could have done it for maybe less than £15 which would have been amazing. Still, I am so happy with what we managed and it really does make a difference.

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