Cabinet for Kid's Toy Kitchen

You always hear about making a prototype of a project before making the real thing. Frankly, none of my projects have been large or complex enough to warrant building a prototpye. But this project was a good way to learn and practice techniques for cabinetmaking (something I had never really done prior to this project) – it’s a small base cabinet for my kids. They have one of those plastic play kitchens, but it doesn’t have enough storage for all their toy food, dishes and utensils. So I decided to build this pint-sized base cabinet for them. It’s about 25” H x 36” W x 18” D and built entirely out of MDF. Of course the MDF was relatively cheap and easy to work with, but the whole thing probably weighs around 80 lbs. (if I did it over again, I would probably limit the MDF to just the carcase). At least I don’t have to worry about the kids moving it around! It’s a face-frame construction. The top/backsplash is 1” thick. The hooks and towel bar on the ends were an afterthought when I realized they needed somewhere to put their little over mitts and dish rags. This was a good learning experience in cabinetmaking. I made some minor errors, but they were either easily fixed or so insignificant that my kids won’t notice (or care even if they do notice them). It was much better to learn from mistakes on this kind of project than on a full-size cabinet with nice, expensive wood.