Thursday, January 18, 2018

Train Table to Lego Table


How to transform your train table into a lego table

The playroom has gone through so many transformations in the last few years, but I could never land on what seemed to be the perfect set up. For years it's felt like a me vs. the playroom battle, and the playroom wins every single time. Only because what happens in the playroom doesn't stay in the playroom. It gets attacked by my wild animals, and then when they have satisfactorily destroyed every aspect within those four walls, they take their party to other parts of the house.

Just before Christmas, I was cleaning and organizing it for the millionth time. I was so tired of battling the vicious toy cleaning cycle, and suddenly I just broke.  I grabbed a big box, a big trash bag and in a blind toy rage, got rid of 75% of what was crammed into our extremely large playroom.

It. Felt. So. GOOD!

Now in hindsight Christmas was only a few days away, and the playroom was about to call in reinforcements from Santa, the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and extended family members across the continent.

But I wasn't about to loose.

I went through the playroom again when I was calmer and did even more culling of things I knew our kids wouldn't play with. I even got rid of book shelves and organizers so we wouldn't be tempted to allow excess to stay just because we have the space for it.


One item I was torn about was our large train table. My son received this train table from my late father-in-law when he was younger. Mr. Cute didn't have any sentimental attachment to it, but I thought of all the things I was getting rid of this one might be able to stay. It has a huge drawer for storage, and in the back of my mind, while my kids don't play with the train part of it I thought maybe we could use it for something else.


Maybe it was all my Pinterest searching, or maybe it was an epiphany after stepping on yet another Lego, but I came up with the idea to transform the table into a Lego table. All three of my children love playing with Legos and blocks, so it seemed like the perfect idea and a way to give something new life that my father-in-law had given them. Plus our Legos tend to be EVERYWHERE!


It was such a quick and easy project that I am now kicking myself for not thinking of it earlier. With in less than an hour I was able to turn the train table into a large Lego table and the kids were happily playing with their new-old toy. It keeps all of our Lego pieces (and there are a lot of them) in one spot and there is plenty of room for several kids to play and build all at once.



HOW TO TURN A TRAIN TABLE INTO A LEGO TABLE


I did a lot of research before starting this project. Tons of people have done it before me. There are tons of YouTube videos on how to do this, pins on Pinterest, and other blog posts. I kind of combined what was easiest from a few of them and went with it.

Warning: Not the best of photography! I took these photos quickly with a cell phone. Our playroom doesn't have any natural light and I took them as an afterthought thinking this might be able to help someone. I was going for quick and easy in all aspects. ;)



Materials Needed
  • Train table (I also thought a coffee table might work for this project too!)
  • Lego Baseplates 



Instructions

1: Remove and flip over your train table top.


2: Measure and layout your baseplates to make sure you have enough. (For my table I needed roughly 15 10 inch baseplates.) 

3: Using Lego pieces make sure each piece on all sides is spaced correctly. You do this so that the Legos will actually fit across each plate once they are all put together.


4: Once measured correctly, peel the adhesive back off and gently lay down the baseplates. (If you make a mistake somewhere the plates will come up with a little effort, but once they are down they are pretty secure.)


Special Note:  If you have any spots that were not able to be covered by solid baseplates, you can cut the baseplates to fit as needed. Some videos showed cutting with standard scissors, but I found that while that was doable, it was super tough. We ended up using a Dremel to cut the rest and it was so much easier. If you have a tool like this on hand, I highly suggest using it.



And that's it! Super easy and ready to play with in under an hour. If you have a child or a guest who still plays with trains, it's easy to flip the Lego side back over to the train side with in less than a few seconds.


I am so happy with how the project turned out, and for now in the me vs. the playroom battle I seem to have won at least this round! Now to tackle the rest...




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