October 19, 2008
Surprise! A toy cabinet!
When Kathy, Rylan and Aubrey came to visit us (they flew home just this morning), there was something new in our living room. Something I have been wanting to blog about but with Robert wanting it to be a total surprise I held off doing so until now.
When Rylan was old enough we pulled out old Play Family Fisher-Price Toys from the barn; toys from Chris and Kathy’s childhood. He loved them so much we decided to keep them in the house. Every time Rylan left we ended up piling them haphazardly on a coffee table next to our living room half wall. I came up with building a toy cabinet. About a month or so ago Robert decided he needed a new project and was ready to build it.
I seized the moment and quickly drew up a very rough sketch for a 6-foot x 2-foot toy cabinet. For the top I sketched in side rails to keep marbles and small things from falling off the edge and a back panel for inserting flat squares of wood with letters and pictures on them. I was sure he would nix my ideas. He went along with the back panel even knowing what a challenge it would be to make slots for each square. However, instead of hand cutting flat squares of wood (a very arduous task) he came up with using leftover tiles from when we tiled our kitchen counters in 1985. He then talked me into using half rounds instead of railing (he told me railing would be ridiculous to try to build on such a small scale). On top of that he came up with using our laser printer to create the letters and pictures instead of me laboriously hand painting each tile. The letters and pictures were printed onto clear adhesive in a dark green to match the cabinet and then adhered to each tile. The tiles turned out absolutely awesome! We used the same technique to decorate the knobs on the doors and drawers. I came up with adding wheels to roll the cabinet into the middle of the living room to allow for more playing room.
Between Robert’s ideas and mine, the toy cabinet turned out to be one very nice addition to our living room and is perfect storage for blocks, marbles, cars, and Play Family toys. We added the last touches the day before Kathy, Rylan and Aubrey's visit. Although it was late at night when they arrived, Rylan immediately noticed it and had to check it out. Kathy was duly impressed. The next morning Rylan quickly climbed right up on top of the cabinet (it had not even occurred to me he would do this) and started playing with the marbles and chutes. He was impressed how the marbles did not roll off onto the floor. It did not take him long to also figure out the half wall made a good seat while playing.
