From Entertainment Center to Drive-Through Restaurant

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We finally finished another furniture makeover project that we actually started a few years ago! Since  we started it a few years ago, I don't have a very good "before" picture, but this was an old entertainment center that I had before I was married. I was inspired by this post: Before & After: Turn an Old Cabinet into a Kid's Play Kitchen from ehow.com. A few years ago when my son was 3, he would have loved a play kitchen, but it never happened. Now that he is 5, we decided to make it a drive through restaurant!

He loves McDonalds. When I  was pregnant, my husband and I said, "Our kid won't be obsessed with McDonalds . . . " famous last words. I don't what it is about that place. It's not like we go on a regular basis, but he gets SO excited about McDonalds! Is it the toy? Probably. So this old entertainment center became a drive through restaurant. He has one of those plasma cars that you can wiggle the handles and it moves without using your feet. They're pretty cool, so in our unfinished basement, he rides it around. That seemed perfect for a drive-through restaurant! In the picture you can see him driving up to the drive-through window in his plasma car!

This is how we refurbished this old entertainment center into a drive-through restaurant. We painted it using a spray gun (which is my new favorite way to paint! Check out this post: DIY Furniture Makeover), and we replaced the glass doors with doors made from dry-erase board and added these handles to make the refrigerator:

At Lowe's or Home Depot you can buy sheets of the dry erase board over in the section where you buy plywood. It's inexpensive, sturdy, thin, and it is easy to cut. We also replaced the cheap cardboard back with dry erase board so we could write the menu with dry-erase markers. Of course my son wanted to make it look like McDonalds, so we made a big curvy yellow M for menu. (He came up with the prices!)

We used disposable aluminum burner liners as the stove, and we flipped the hinges on one of the doors on the bottom so it opens like an oven. A few years ago (when we started the play kitchen!), Target had the little hotdog and french fry holders in the dollar bin. They also had stuff like ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles and a menu pad, so that is all in his restaurant. He cut out and colored fries to go in the fry box, and he had play food that we added to the refrigerator. He had a friend over the other day, and they added toys to the meal too to make it a happy meal! 

Now we can check another project off the list! This one was more involved, but our little guy has fun making us food and driving up to the drive-through window in his car or big wheels! Have you done a furniture makeover like this before? I would love to see pictures!