Here is the original kitchen set
It was bright red and had background papers with pictures of food and dishes on it. Not really my cup of tea, so those had to go. Also, as most sets are, this too was far too low for FR dolls. So, I also decided to make a pedestal to increase the height of the set. First, it was just a piece of wood, but in the end that made it a bit too high. However, my first priority was to change that loud fire engine red.
This is the kitchen after a brown base coat. I covered the part I wanted to keep original with tape and news papers and sanded the surfaces to be painted with rough sand paper. This not only helps the paint to stick but also makes a wood grain like surface that increases the realistic feeling to this all too polished plastic.
The base coat was made with brown spray paint, but that was a grave mistake. Don´t use spray paint! It corrodes the plastic. Sigh. Even though I had covered the windows of the cupboard over the sink well with tape the spray paint corroded the plastic underneath too. So, now they have a effcet that makes them look awfully dirty. Well, its not like my own kitchen is perfectly clean either, so I won´t let it bother me. Still, I would not done it if I had known.
Finished:
After the base coating I use acrylic paints and a small brush to paint wood grain patterns to the brown surfaces. I also made some "marble" tiles from cardboard that I hot glued above the sink and stove. That warm marble looked kind of out of place first, so I toned the cupboard under the sink with same warm creamy tone.
I also build a proper pedestal from foam core. It is about 2,5cm high and painted white with acrylics. If you use a coarse brush and quite dry paint the brush strokes will give you a nice wood grain feeling. I also painted all the handles white and replaced the background cardboards with plain white ones. And now, I finally have a place for all my rements - and there is quite a bunch of them! ;)
