Take a Peek Inside The Grimm Playroom

Just one wall of children's furniture in the Grimm family playroom. The rug beneath the cradles and highchair is braided in burgundy, red, ivory, grey and Colonial blue colors. I have recently striped, sanded and repainted the cradle you see in the far lower left hand corner. Soon I will add a bit of folk painting to it and post the design on this blog.

       Last March I posted a DIY Play Kitchen Stove Top & Oven project featuring my latest addition to a child's kitchen. Here I have photographed the oldest child furnishings built by my husband's great grandfather. Carpentry was a hobby for him I believe. I refinished his two pieces, a pantry on the far left and a dining cupboard on the far right. My husband's mother and aunt played with these when they were very young and so did my children.

      The pantry was painted yellow and converted into a doll closet and the cupboard was covered with decals, applied by a very precocious, blond toddler. So after the last group of young family members grew out of the furnishings, I decided to refurbish the lot. I did a bit of research at the internet archive and discovered adult furnishings similar to these in catalogues dating from 1910. To my surprise I found my furnishings to be exact replicas of a pantry and cupboard kitchen combination! So I decided to refinish the doll closet, now a pantry, and the child sized cupboard as a matched kitchen set in Colonial blue, one of my favorite colors. I left the counter top of the cupboard with it's original stain to match a few other pieces of stained doll furnishings that I have collected over the past five years. 

       The center dry sink pictured above is a flee market find.  I paid only $8.00 for it. I had to refinish the sink with grey enamel paint because it had rusted and I thought this would be unsafe for future play. I painted the cabinets below with the same Colonial blue as my older pieces. You can see there is a missing trim piece just behind the sink. Eventually, I will cut a new one to match (probably this winter) and then stain it.

Left, the refinished doll closet is now a Colonial blue, kitchen pantry. As of yet, I need to add shelving behind the long, narrow door.
Today it houses a black furry hobby horse, child fishing poles, and car mats. I use the drawers to store the girl's plastic animal toys for now.

This blue eyed, red headed, toddler doll sits with her soup in a very old doll high chair. What I love most about this piece ...
someone attached the tray to the chair with old dresser drawer knobs.

Above left is the cupboard that once was decorated with decals. Center, it is now used to store tiny tea sets,
figurines and silver plated tea/server sets. All of these small things were purchased for mere pennies at second hand stores.

I wonderful $8 dollar purchase from a local flee market. It looks like it was built at the same time as the two pieces that flank either side of it,
but it is a much newer furnishing. The tea pot on the sideboard is made of tin, there is an old wire basket for eggs and an old-fashioned
 toy telephone next to the sink as well.

We call this little doll our kitchen mother. I love her stripped skirt,
 gauzy apron and pale pink shawl. She watches over all the babies
in the Grimm nursery and efficiently tucks in their covers at
 night so that they will sleep soundly.

A needlepoint that once belonged to my husband's mother.
She finished it for her mother but had tucked it away inside
 her sewing basket for years. I stretched it carefully and put
 it into an old walnut frame to match the children's furnish-
ings. Text, "Bless This House O Lord We Pray." She would
 be pleased to know that someone small can appreciate it now.

More Old-Fashioned Playrooms:

• The Gordon-Roberts House
• Baby Sand's Vintage Nursery Reveal!
• Colorful Vintage-Inspired Play Zone for 3
• Repainted and repurposed for little ones
• Child Sized Furnishings
• Updates to the kitchen and dining area