Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s. After a little break from our blog, I wanted to share a post about our Christmas.Michael, Camdyn, and I enjoyed celebrating Christmas with our extended family in Oklahoma the weekend before Christmas. It was so special to have my parents, all four of my siblings, and their spouses and significant others together for Christmas for the first time in several years. Then it was back to Bryarton Farm in Kansas to celebrate our family’s first cozy Christmas on the farm.

Due to the moving and all the recent renovation costs this year, we were on a very tight budget. This forced us to be more creative with our resources and to think outside the box when it came to gift giving. We gave hand-painted Bible verses on rustic barn wood we salvaged from our own barn to my siblings, and sent out hand-made cards to loved ones back in Georgia. All our gifts were made with love. Although they did not cost much monetarily, Michael and I spent countless hours pouring our hearts into everything we made. The time and thought that went into them made them (we hope) more special than store-bought gifts.

The person we had the most fun creating a gift for though was Cami Grace.

It just so happens that even though we have not had a real kitchen for over six months to show her what to do, Camdyn’s favorite thing in the world is “cooking” with her play dishes. She spends hours each day making Mommy scrumptious dishes like pea and kiwi soup (shown above) or ketchup and grape tea (Yes, cooking in a tiara is how we roll around here). This made Michael and I realize that the perfect gift for Cami would be a little kitchen for her to create her culinary masterpieces with. If I couldn’t have a kitchen of my own at least someone here at the farmhouse would.

I wanted her to have a kitchen that mimicked our Vintage Farmhouse style and I found the perfect one from Pottery Barn Kids. The only problem was it would cost roughly $900 for the set. That is crazy! Instead we were thrilled to find a little wooden child’s buffet for only $20 on Craigslist. It was in rough shape, but I saw potential. I also snagged a vintage faucet and enamel bowl for a few dollars at a local antique shop to make a small sink.

I started the lil kitchen make-over by sanding and re-staining the beat up counter top. I was going for the butcher block look. Then, I removed the right cabinet door to make way for the sink skirt, a signature element of farmhouse kitchens. Next, I removed the 1950’s hardware and gave the little kitchen two coats of white paint.

Using his Dremel Multi-Max tool, Michael tackled the tedious process of cutting the holes for the sink and faucet. He did a beautiful job. Once I attached the $1 vintage linen table-runner-turned-curtain, the farmhouse style sink was finished.

I was able to add a stove and oven for $0 to the left side of the kitchen using things I already had. To create the look of the oven and broiler doors, I simply hot glued 2 white picture frames to the cabinet door and painted their centers black. The nickel pulls were left over from another project and I painted the cabinet hinges silver to match. We had several ideas of how to create the stove burners, but in the end I opted to just paint them directly onto the countertop.

As you can probably tell it was a great success and Cami Grace’s cooking has reached new heights of culinary splendor. I am trying hard not to be jealous that she got a kitchen before me, but I am so happy with how it turned out. What do you think of Cami’s new kitchen? Did we inspire you to make a little kitchen for your princess? Let us know if we did and please subscribe to get all our creative updates!