10 Wooden Toy Kitchens

If your family is anything like mine you’ll be spending lots of time in the kitchen this season preparing holiday goodies. Or at least you will try to. Then your small children will try to help and end up getting underfoot. Before you know it there will be eggshells in the cookies, jalapeno seeds in the bean dip, and heaven knows what ended up in the turkey! That’s why this year my husband and I decided to buy the kids their own kitchen. My only request – that it be a wooden kitchen with a classic look and sturdy construction. Here are the ones we’re looking at to compliment our own kitchen:

My Creative Cookery Club
– by Hape Interntational

This kitchen seems like a simple, no frills, kitchen, but don’t let those first impressions decive you. This is one of the few kitchens we looked at that actually came with a large variety of toy food, pots and pans. This wooden kitchen is also high quality with natural wood staining instead of paint. Another bonus for The Creative Cookery Club kitchen: it’s big enough for more than one cook, but small enough to move at the last minute when you need to entertain adult guests!

Little Tikes Deluxe Wooden Kitchen and Laundry Center
– by Little Tikes

This wooden kitchen comes with the kitchen sink and more! The additional laundry center is a bonus and can help encourage your small child to use imaginite play to do chores (the more you can encourage your kids that chores are fun, the more they’ll want to do them as older children!) What we liked most about this unit is that the colors are gender neutral. My husband does all of the cooking and with 2 sons it’s important that we have something “manly” – no… no beer collection on the shelves, no mounted bottle openers… but no pink frills either! Only drawbacks of this kitchen — particle board and wood verneer construction and accessories and knobs that are made of plastic.

Large Kitchen
– by KidKraft

While ads state this kitchen is gender neutral, I’ve never considered a pink refrigerator to be boyish in any sense. Apart from that one minor draw back there are lots of features that my children were intrigued by. The clock and phone were a nice addition (though who needs the Caller ID feature?) as was the dry erase notepad (my son loves to draw up a shopping list just like Mommy.) We also liked the fact that this kitchen was big enough for both of my boys to share. Mom’s favorite feature: see through doors… it’s much easier to find lost toys this way!

Kitchenette Center – Natural
– by Guidecraft

I liked this natural colored wooden kitchen because it blends well with any home decor. That may not sound important, but in our family we have toys in every room. It’s nice to have something that’s not red, green, blue or yellow! This mini wooden kitchen had some other functions I liked – simple assembly, doesn’t take up too much space, and doesn’t have any annoying sounds. It looks to have enough features to keep the kids busy though!

Prairie Kitchen
– by KidKraft

I’ve never been much of a country fan (forgive me, Sis!) and so I didn’t really take the time to look too closely at this kitchen, at first. As I scouted out the wooden kitchen selection further, I found that this KidKraft kitchen kept popping up. So I took a look. It’s a great sized kitchen for two kids and has really sturdy construction. Another bonus – this kitchen had a middle rack, something many of the other kitchens were missing. (There is nothing cuter than a 3 year old wearing giant oven mits pretending to bake pizza!) One drawback – the kitchen sink comes out and appears to scratch easily. As long as you have children who don’t hide pieces around the house, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

A Simple Wooden Kitchen Hearth
– by Camden Rose

This wooden kitchen is absolutely amazing! Built by the Amish in the US it is crafted of solid cherry with walnut and birch accents and is amazingly sturdy. As the salesperson stated it’s deffinitely for multi-generational use! All of the materials used are natural and there is a non-toxic beeswax finish. There are only two drawbacks: I would hate to see it get scratched, and I would need to redo my entire kitchen to make it worthy of my son’s play one!

Grill ‘N Bake Kitchen
– by KidKraft

My husband instantly loved this kitchen – it had an outdoor grill! Which is a great thing when you have kids and are trying to barbeque outside. They always want to come and play and those kettles get awfully hot. This kitchen provides a solution, let them play alongside but out of harms way. It’s also nice that it utilizes both sides: one is the outdoor grill, the other is a cozy indoor kitchen. Dials for the stove and dishwasher are sturdy and make clicking noises when turned. This wooden kitchen was definitely roomier and more sturdy than some of the plastic models we saw. For our two boys, this one is looking like a potential winner for around/behind/next-to the Christmas Tree.

My First Kitchen
– by HaPe International

This wooden kitchen was a little too small for our needs. With a 1 year old and a 3 year old there was no way they could share this, and my 3 year old would need it on the play table for it to be of use. However, that having been said, it is a great little kitchen for 1 year olds. It’s perfect play height and it has doors and knobs and levers and things to pull in and out of other things – everything my one year old loves to do! The food supplies that come with it tough make this a great deal for parents who are looking for the most bang for their buck: fried eggs, pizza and pots and pans all come with this kitchen.

Wooden Play Kitchen Set
– by Plan Toys

This wooden kitchen seemed to be a little too simple for our needs. And it was… until we looked at all of the other units we could buy! If we had a dedicated playroom this selection would be perfect as we could set up different “rooms within a room” to have a kitchen, laundry and more. Comes in several gender neutral colors and has several shelves and hangers for kitchen gadgets. Great choice for the parent who wants to be able to expand at a later date.

Wooden Kitchen Center
– by Maxim

This last wooden kitchen was another good choice. Made of sturdy hardwood it also has non-toxic paint, a plus for anyone who has a teething 1 year old walking around the house and gnawing on ddoors. (And yes, before you ask, mine does!) This wooden kitchen has cute little curtains to keep toys hidden, an oven with lots of storage space for extra food accessories and a rack for holding dish towels. That last feature is great for reminding them to wash up their hands around food and to keep their kitchen clean.