Dress Up Stand

Aidan and I have really gotten into the whole DIY thing, we've been pinning onto our joint Pinterest board, projects that we want to try and it seems like now we've finally started them we won't be able to stop! I think though that my favourite project will always be our first project we completed together. Aisling's dress up station. I've had this project pinned as something I've wanted for a long time however as it came closer to Aisling's birthday I started to look into options for it too become a reality. I got a quote from a man making pallet furniture who quoted me $120 then when I was due to pick it up I asked for an update and he changed the price to $170. I didn't feel comfortable with the price increase and lack of communication so I started looking at the plans I had saved on Pinterest again. This one was my favourite.

At that time we literally had no power tools so I asked around to friends and family on Facebook and managed to come up with the tools we needed to attempt this project. We priced wood in Bunnings and settled on purchasing plywood sheets and Aidan reworked the plan on paper to fit in with the dimensions of the 1.2 m x 1.2 m plywood sheets.

This was such a simple and inexpensive project only requiring two sheets of plywood {although we only used about one sixth of the second sheet} a handful of screws { we used screws that we managed to find laying around our parents} and paint. On top of that the tools we used were a measuring tape, circular saw, jigsaw or multi tool for rounding the edges, sander and a drill.

The cutting of the wood was simple. Aidan did those cuts while I minded the kids inside {Archie really hates the circular saw} then he rounded the edges of the pieces of wood that were going to make the sides. He tried two different jigsaws for this but he struggled as they bounced and jumped around a lot. So he gave up on the jigsaw and had more success with the multi tool cutter.

Once the wood was all cut it was a matter of using the drill to screw the correct pieces together which did not take long at all. Once it was all assembled we gave it a quick sand and began painting. We gave it a coat of white to start with and then gave it two coats of our chosen colour, mint green.

Once the paint was dry Aidan applied our cast vinyl letters onto the front. Aidan works in a sign shop so we were able to print the letters and wording professionally.

It's the most rewarding thing to look at your handiwork and think "we made that" and it's even more satisfying to know that you made it for a fraction of the cost. If you are interested in a quote please contact us at "AMYzing play" and we can work out a budget friendly customised dress up stand for you :-)