I’ve been wanting a learning tower/kitchen helper for my daughter to use in the kitchen for quite a while but the $199 price tag made it really unrealistic for us. After a bit of searching online, I came across the website ana-white.com and her tutorial on how to make your own You can find it here <—
Amazingly easy tutorial! I printed it out and hit the store! My grandpa is a master woodworker so I took everything to him and he had a new weekend project! It cost me about $40 for all the materials and it took Grandpa the weekend to get it together (he made a few tweaks, using wood glue and dowels thingies rather than screws).
Tada! A Learning Tower was born:
It’s very sturdy and the height adjustments work perfectly for the kids. MB (21 months) uses it on the highest “setting” and my older (3 & 4-year-old) daycare kids use it on the next level down with no problems. I was a bit concerned that the slats on the “ladder” side were a bit too thin for feet with shoes but for the most part it works out just fine. If MB has her bulky clogs on, she can’t get her feet in the hole to climb up but her regular tennis shoes or even her rain boots work fine.
He also added some skid-proof plastic (shelf liners for cabinets, $4 @ Ikea for a huge roll) to the platform so MB wouldn’t slip if she spilled something on it or it got wet.
It works great and is the perfect height for MB to help out and be part of what is going on.
If you are handy (or like my case knows someone who is) it’s a great project and I highly recommend it. The tutorial is easy and tells you everything you need to get started. Plus when you are done you can personalize it however you want, there are a bunch of pictures on the blog from people that have made it and gave theirs some great flair (unlike my plain one!).
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