Grandpa's time in London | Ikea Duktig Kitchen Hack

Izzy's grandpa spent 12 days in the UK in total, it was too short we all thought :).

It was nice to see the two spending time together, especially in the early mornings. Grandpa wakes up at 5ish every morning and when Izzy wakes up at 7ish, she will go to the stairs and peer down and call for "ah gong". Then he will bring her downstairs and feed her some breakfast and play with her. Or Izzy would be running around him while he built her toy kitchen. And mummy can sleep in.. ahh bliss.

Toy Kitchen

Ah yes, this home project which I had envisioned doing in my head for the longest time. If you haven't heard or seen, there are so many Pinterest posts about the IKEA kids kitchen hack - where parents buy the Ikea Duktig play kitchen and modify it to suit their own colour theme. I was very inspired by this blogger Katie Lamb's kitchen hack that I saved it in my phone for the longest time. I even managed to convince two other mum friends to buy the same kitchen and jazz it up to match their house decor.

Don't mind the clutter

I had wanted Isabelle to have a toy kitchen to match my real kitchen above. Marble worktop, white sink, brass handles, slate grey cupboard doors, subway tiles splash back. One fine day I went to Ikea with the said two mom friends and bought the kitchen. From then on, the Ikea box has been lying in my hallway for the longest time, together with the spray paints. See I then found out I was pregnant and then we were planning to spend most of our summer back in Singapore. Nonetheless, in my head this project was still doable. I could do it when we are back in September when Isabelle is at the childminder's, no?

Alas, it wasn't that easy, from what I observed from Grandpa Ong. He kindly took over this toy project from me and even him, who is good with his hands on fixing things around the house, mentioned this was no easy feat. I had no idea we had to sand the wood first, spray a layer of primer and then finally the paint. Two layers of paint to be safe. So we had to make a few trips back to the hardware store to get more spray cans, sandpaper, etc. And don't even mention about putting the kitchen together. Oh gosh and please don't even ask me how much I spent in total. "Too much" is the answer. My budget spiralled out of control because I had no idea the number of spray cans needed. This was therefore the main project which grandpa undertook during his time here.

Here is the final product, one which we are all immensely proud of, because of grandpa's hard work, and mummy is very grateful that she had help with what was originally thought to be a doable project.

Presenting the finished product!

Little Izzy was excited when she first saw it. She quickly turned on the tap and when no water came out, she looked at me and said "mummy, the tap.. spoil." Lol, you gotta give it to her! Made me laugh out loud.

Close enough to the real kitchen right?

Can I share a secret thought with you? I had thought it was so doable that I told K "Oh you know what, if this turns out to be a success, maybe I could advertise it to other parents. I could tailor make their Ikea Duktig kitchen to match their decor at home! Wouldn't it be fun? And I can earn some extra pocket money!"

Err no. Bad idea. Really bad idea. For those who are also inspired, I would say... please think twice. Of course now K only looks at the kitchen and laughs at how ludicrous my idea was. He thinks I enjoy playing at the kitchen more than Izzy... which for the record, it might be true...

"What else?" Izzy loves to say these days

Grandpa was not too interested to spend his short time here doing sightseeing. On weekdays, he was happy to be at home with us, helping us around the house. In fact on the first few days, he was busy Marie Kondo-ing our kitchen. He was organising and helping us decide what stuff sparked joy and what to throw. He kept saying our house was "too messy!".

In his quest of organising our place, I drove him to Ikea twice to get some storage for the house, mainly the ever popular Kallax shelving for Isabelle's nursery. All her toys are always strewn across the floor and it's like walking through a war zone each time. Having a 4x2 Kallax storage unit really helps in organising her stuff and we were very grateful to grandpa for helping us put that in place. Now papa Ong is keen to get even more Kallax shelving in the house!

Grandpa also built this little set of table and chairs for Izzy

Not only that he cooked every meal elaborately for us everyday. There was no need to go out for meals at all. He was more keen to visit our supermarkets and look at fresh produce and think of what he could cook for us.

A typical home cooked meal

His planned menu

The next weekend K brought his dad out to Central London to do sightseeing, together with Isabelle so I could rest at home. They visited Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Tower Bridge and we were glad the weather was really pleasant. By then temperatures were coming down to autumnal temperatures, and really comfortable.

Finally on Sunday evening we bade goodbye to Grandpa Ong. K drove his dad to Gatwick Airport and Izzy and I said our goodbyes at home. For the next few days, little Izzy would wake up each morning and peer down from the stairs looking for ah gong. She missed her grandfather.