This may just be the sweetest little kitchen we ever did see. Created by expert kitchen designers, Thorpe, (known at home as Mom and Dad) this custom kitchen was handmade and delivered just in time for Christmas. Minimal Scandinavian in design, and just as well crafted as their adult scale kitchens, this precious place will be a place for play year long. Keep reading to hear how this miniature came together and see the adorableness below.

From the designer… Seeing as my husband Caleb and I have been designing kitchens together since before we even started a family, it’s always been a dream of ours to design and build our son Blaze a custom little play kitchen. There were many times with the business of life and our business that we almost just broke down and bought one, but we finally found some time just before Christmas to make the project come to life.

After a few weeks of collecting fun elements and spending late nights dreaming and building, on Christmas morning our little dream came true. As projects normally do, we definitely got a little carried away (cue the last minute addition of an island) but we had an absolute blast letting our creativity run wild as we crafted a special space our family will get to enjoy for years to come.

Some of our favourite elements ended up being unexpected. Like a solid brass beverage faucet that we had purchased for a client, but when it arrived with a defective part instead of discarding it, we ended up repurposing it for Blaze’s tiny scale sink faucet.

Like most kiddos, our son Blaze comes alive when play most closely mirrors real life and so we designed the kitchen to feel as real as possible — the fridge and oven both light up when the doors open and the tiny custom range hood houses lighting that Blaze can turn on with a switch. Along the same lines, we made the wooden burners and knobs for the stove which we stained black, and the island and countertop are both made out of reclaimed solid wood, which we found at a local wood shop. The doors are white oak with a slatted design and, just like in our real kitchen, they sit inset in a painted frame. These special elements all add to the magic for our little guy who always wants to be just like Mom and Dad.

The icing on the cake was the tiny collection of mini play food and tiny kitchen accessories we curated from various places like Ikea, Etsy and local thrift stores. One of our absolute favourite finds was a felt loaf of sourdough that ended up being so realistic we’ve since used it for staging project photoshoots without anyone noticing it wasn’t real!

As much as we expected the project to be special to our family, we didn’t expect it to be so special to our followers, and we were shocked as images we shared flooded our DMs with requests for similar kid’s kitchens. We don’t have any formal plans in the works yet to get into the kid’s kitchen business, but we do have a waiting list that is rapidly growing so, you never know what the future might hold!

Like what you see? Take a peek at the talent behind the story… Design & Installation: Thorpe · Photography: Tess Gigone