what's your favorite play kitchen?

[beautifulboy]

Hi there toddler parents

We're looking at play kitchens for our boy and are wondering what other families have. We would like to buy a wooden one like the following (but admittedly these here too expensive for us):

http://www.oompa.com/baby-toys/category/806

is there one out there that are cooler than these? (and possibly more affordable?) We're also looking on craigs list, so maybe we could get one of the nicer ones gently used.....so price may not be that much of an option...

[tabrizia]

We really like our IKEA kitchen, it is well made, sturdy, can be raised so it is taller as the children grow and it is fairly inexpensive.

[fancyoats]

we have this one. we love it!

[ellairiesmom]

We also have an Elves & Angels one...& we added the icebox to it for her bday...we LOVE them. She loves them. It is great if you want to stay gender neutral too.

http://www.blueberryforest.com/elves...ay-kitchen.htm

http://www.blueberryforest.com/kitch...bs-ice-box.htm

In one of the recent threads here on play kitchens, someone also mentioned a seller on etsy who makes different ones. I think it was this shop...http://www.etsy.com/shop/imaginethatwoodshop

[azzeps]

I really, really wanted to get a kitchen for DD that was like the Elves & Angels ones, and the refrigerator, too. But we decided it was just NOT in the budget at all, especially with shipping costs and the fact that then I would want the fridge too, and it was just unaffordable. So we went with the IKEA kitchen, and so far, so good. Our daughter LOVES it. I kinda figured that she was going to love any kitchen we got, no matter what it cost (she wouldn't know the difference, and would have been happy with a plastic one from Craigslist), so the IKEA one would work just fine for us, and so far it has. I decided that a fridge was not essential... at this age, DD is baking her Disney princesses and roasting plastic animals, anyhow, so she's not much into the "realistic" pretend play quite yet, and not hung up on putting her milk and butter in the cupboard under the sink.

You can get the kitchen (sink, stove, oven) for $99 and we added the hutch/microwave for another $39. It wasn't too hard to put together, but was easier with two of us. And another boon is that it is adjustable... oh, and the gender neutral part was important to me, too. I just really did not want a PINK kitchen. It is way cuter in person than on the website, in my opinion. Happy shopping!

Oh, another consideration was having some $$ leftover to buy food and pots & pans!

[jgracefrank]

We have "Liam's Kitchen" from Willow Toys and we absolutely LOVE it!

[ZippyGirl]

We have this wooden play kitchen and LOVE it. The company now makes a slightly cheaper one. If you have your heart set on a wooden one, maybe Craigslist might be a good place to look? Oh, now re-reading your post, I see that you already thought of Craigslist. Hmmmm... What about Etsy? Another vote for Ikea, too. We've bought a few toys from them, and they've all been hits and at such amazing prices!

[ellairiesmom]

If you decide to go with Elves and Angels, Blueberry Forest had free shipping when we bought the icebox & I think it was Three Sisters Toys who had the free shipping when we bought the oven/sink piece.

You just have to watch for shipping specials on their sites...

[Girlprof]

Originally Posted by fancyoats

we have this one. we love it!

We got this one for DD for Christmas and we also love it.

[NicaG]

We got this one for the kids for Christmas:
http://www.amazon.com/KidKraft-53181...3789390&sr=8-1

We got it mostly for dd (who's 15 months and will grow into it), but ds (almost 5) plays with it too. He doesn't mind the pink fridge. If it really bothered you, it could easily be painted a different color. So far, we love it! I really like that it has a fridge and oven built in. There's lots of storage space for play food. It could use a better work space, but we have a toddler table nearby for workspace/meal play/restaurant play. The kitchen is really well made, and the colors are nice, not obnoxious. I would definitely recommend it. I thought the price was excellent for such a great product (I think we actually got ours for $99 from Amazon around Christmas time). Kidcraft makes a more "gender-neutral" version of this kitchen, but it's about $35 more.

I've seen the Ikea kitchen in their stores, and I was underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Ikea fan, but the kitchen seemed like it wasn't well thought out. And it was only on display for a few weeks, and already several components had broken from kids playing with it. The plastic parts in particular seemed really cheap and flimsy. And I thought it wasn't very attractive generally.

Check out Target--if I recall, they have a nice wooden kitchen (in blue) that's about $90.