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Focus on the Kenmore Kitchen - by DeeinNJ
(November 2005)
Today Rare Creature is whipping up an asian meal for some friends who are coming over shortly. She’s doing it all in her new Kenmore Kitchen.
This little kitchen is a hot topic since it’s the first contemporary-looking kitchen that’s come out it a while that isn’t in kiddie colors. The nice thing about it is that it features a black/white and stainless steel look and if you aren’t in to customizing or repainting, you don’t have to do a SINGLE thing to this kitchen to make it look fantastic in your diorama. (Yay! no repainting!) I’ve already seen some fabulous photos from others who are making great use of this new kitchen.
The attention to detail is amazing with real racks in the dishwasher and oven and lots of places to store your little goodies. It’s currently on sale at Sears for $24.99, but also available at K-mart for $29.99.
The kitchen comes in four separate sections so you can arrange it however you like. Now, even though this kitchen looks great as is, as a Diorama Diva, I just couldn’t leave well enough alone. I had to do a bit of customizing. I wanted mine to be pretty contemporary and upscale so it could someday be part of my Fashion Royalty loft, which will feature lots of contemporary furnishings. All in all, it only took me about an hour to do all of the customizing on this kitchen.
I colored the handles on the fridge, stove and dishwasher black with a Galaxy Marker. I also colored some buttons, etc. on the fridge and dishwasher in the same way, and used silver Galaxy marker to color the cabinet handles.
I covered the counters and backsplash using glossy marble-print card stock and my Xyron machine to apply adhesive. You could use marble-print contact paper to achieve the same look. Or another scrapbook paper like granite or sandstone, etc. and spray adhesive. You might also want to try mini tile sheets available at craft and miniature stores to give your backsplash a tiled look. Or you could even apply decorative decals or rub-ons for a handpainted look to your kitchen. If you want to be able use different backsplashes and switch them from time to time, affix them with repositionable glue-dots or Hermafix wax dots. That way, you can remove the backsplash whenever you want. Get creative!
I did a variation on the stove using silver brushed metallic paper to make the backsplash look like stainless steel, so you could do the entire backsplash like this for an ultra modern look.
After covering the counters and backsplash for each individual section, I also created counter and backsplash pieces from the same marble-look card stock so I could set up my kitchen in an L-shape instead of straight across (which still looks nice). Otherwise, when you set up your kitchen as a corner kitchen, there's a big gap in the corner of the counter. To add extra counter space and disguise the large gap, I cut one long piece of marble paper and folded it to form the corner backsplash. I cut a second piece that lays over the top of the dishwasher segment and a small portion of the sink segment to form the L-shaped countertop and cover the gap. Because I already have marble paper underneath, the fit doesn’t have to be too precise for these sections. See pic below. If I want to set the kitchen up in one straight line, I just remove these extra pieces since they just lay in there without any adhesive and can be reused when needed. It’s a good idea to color the edges of your cardstock with black marker before attaching anything to disguise the white paper edges.
With a little imagination, you can take this kitchen to the next level. I added a kitchen "island" which is a repainted counter from a Barbie shoe boutique. I also added a couple of Bratz stools to the island. By changing where I place this island in the kitchen, I can change the look a bit.