Mum’s insane Kmart cubby makeover

Shannon Rickard, 32, from Redland Bay in south Brisbane, wasted no time putting her Mother’s Day gift of a jigsaw to good use.

The mother-of-three had already bought her sons – aged 7, 3 and 18 months – a kitchenette.

But when space became an issue she decided to create her own by combining two Kmart cubby houses for $199 each.

“The boys had a timber kitchenette, also from Kmart, that had a table and chairs, however my little one began climbing all over it and there was nowhere to store all the ‘food’, I thought I’d get them a cubby house,” Shannon told news.com.au

“I ended up getting two and putting them together because one wasn’t big enough for all three of them to fit into.”

After some chopping, changing and screwing, she created what some have described online as a “crazy amazing” play cafe.

“I got rid of the roof and a wall on one of them, so instead of having four walls, it’s now three and I attached them together by screwing them at the middle, leaving just one side open,” Shannon told news.com.au.

The 32-year-old did the majority of it on her own, however she did get her husband to help hold the walls as she screwed them in.

“I also had to chop part of the roof to shorten it, otherwise it wouldn’t have gone together.
“I used my jigsaw for most of it which I got for Mother’s Day this year – I’ve definitely made plenty of use of it. I also used it to cut the tables off the kitchenette.”

Shannon didn’t let the kitchenette go to waste. She reseized it to fit inside the “cubby cafe”.

She also used Bunnings paint to give the window frames a black finish and used her wood burning pen to write the cafe name – Gumnut – and create the menu.

“The most challenging part was fitting the kitchen into the cubby. I had to do that before I fixed them together. But other than that, the rest wasn’t too bad.

“It took me a few months to fully complete, only because I wasn’t doing it everyday and between juggling three kids, it was a bit hard.”

To complete the look, Shannon spent about $200 on accessories such as “food” and “appliances” as well as a play coffee machine and barbecue – also from Kmart.

But the biggest test was whether her boys liked it and to that she said, “I can’t get them out of there.

“They love it. Sometimes they fight over who is cooking and who is the customer. The little one is in there everyday and brings out coffees and hot chocolates. It’s great.”

The mother-of-three uploaded snaps of her cubby hack to a Kmart Facebook group, telling news.com.au she was overwhelmed by all the positive comments and thousands of ‘likes’.

“Wow wow wow. Easily the best cubby hack I have seen. My boys would love that!!” a fellow mum wrote.

“Superb job, I am loving everything about it,” said another, while a third mum said: “This is my fav one yet! Awesome job.”

Others described it as “incredible” and “creative” with one Facebook user saying she’s 40 and would still play in there.

“Dreamt of something like this when I was little. Really good job. I’m sure your boys love it,” the woman continued.

Shannon said she was inspired by seeing all the other wonderful Kmart cubby houses online, but wanted to try something a little different.

“I wanted to show ours as it wasn’t the typical girls conversions you see on the page. And comments from mums getting ideas and wanting to do something to theirs’ was great to see. “I’m very thankful for the kind comments congratulating me on my labour of love.”