I’m so excited about this project! My boys were starting to outgrow their train table and our train set had definitely outgrown the table top. We are entering the Lego stage in our house and while I am super excited, I’m sick of finding them all over my house! Grrr… stepping on Lego’s barefoot hurts!
They really needed a place set aside for Lego’s. I thought their train table would make the perfect surface. It has a lip so they wont fall off. They can leave their creations up and not have to put them away each time they stopped playing. Plus there were already big drawers to hold the Lego’s. I decided to convert my train table to a Lego table by adding the Lego building plates to the top.
I found the LEGO Bricks Blue Building Plate (10″ x 10″)
on Amazon to be the best priced. They were $5.52 when I bought them so the whole table cost me about $70. It has been worth every cent! Amazon did limit me to 5 Lego plates so I did have to have Pam and another friend order some for me.
Our train table was the one that Costco sells each year at Christmas. Its this table: KidKraft Train Set and Table
. Only at Costco it came with two KidKraft Train Drawers. I love these drawers and would hate to not have them for storage. If you have toddler boys this train table and train set is a great way to start off a train set.
I flipped my train table top over and spray painted the top black.
This way if we want to use the design on the top we still can! I only painted the edges black thinking the whole middle would be covered in the Lego plates but you can see just a little bit in between. If I were to do it over again I would give the whole top a coat of black. The middle would not need to be perfect but a light black coat would be good.
Next I marked out the edges of where I wanted my plates to start and started gluing them down.
I used 527 Multi-Use Glue. This is my go-to glue for everything, seriously its the BEST glue ever! But, for this project it wasn’t the best. I had to reattach one of the plates using Liquid Nails.
For the road I just used a yard stick and pencil to mark it. I did a 1 inch line and then a 2 inch break. Once I had my lines in pencil I took a small paint brush and white paint to paint over the pencil.
I found it easiest not to center the plates, but rather to use one edge to line the plates up so I knew they were going on straight. As I added plates I actually used Lego’s to hold them together so I knew the spacing would be a seamless Lego surface.
The whole project took me about 20 minutes to assemble and was SO easy! My boys LOVE it! Their friends LOVE it! The have so much fun building and love that they can keep adding to their base or town rather than have to put them away and destroy it every time. It is making a huge difference with how much their imagination can run wild since they keep building on what they have already created.
Mom is happy too, because even though they are leaving their Lego’s out, it looks neat and tidy! Another win-win-win project! (Please tell me there are a few Office fans out there who understand my win-win-win jokes!)
If you love Legos, you will want to check these posts out!
How to build a Lego table – Convert a coffee table
Looks amazing!
I am thinking of doing this too….but on the back side of the train designed board so that we can still use it for trains and leggos by just flipping the surface. our train table has drawers for the trains and I can put plastic bins under for leggos. I have a 1 year old and 5 year old but not enough space for the train table AND a new leggo table. What do you think?? 🙂 Love your table!
I did that for ours. The other side was smoother too so I just painted it black and then added my lego boards. We do still flip it over every once in while to use the train side.
Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I love your table and used it as inspiration for mine. It’ll be up on our blog on Friday and I linked back to you. Thanks for sharing!
Jenn
http://housewivesofriverton.blogspot.com/
>Awesome idea, my kids will love this!!
>This is genius! I am suddenly so glad I didn't get rid of my boys' train table!
>fabulous way to keep those legos confined and their projects on display (which they love!)
Thanks for linking your idea to the Sunday Showcase last week. Hope to see you this week!
Bern
http://momto2poshlildivas.blogspot.com/search/label/Sunday%20Showcase
>Thanks so much for linking up with last week's Fun Stuff Fridays! Such a great idea…I would have loved this as a kid!! What a great way to recycle outgrown toys!
Hope to see you link up to Fun Stuff Fridays next week!
>This looks great! Lego city in our house is road plates on a huge piece of plywood on the bedroom floor! (ay 6'x3) we do love lego!
>this is awesome I'd love you to link this to my party at http://raegunwear.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-i-wore-wednesdays-1.html
>What a clever idea! I love how you changed your table to meet your needs! It looks fantastic. Thanks for sharing it at TGIF! Have a great Thanksgiving & we'll see you next week,
Beth =-)
>Great idea with the roads!! We did this last year with our boys train table and it has been a hit!! I would love for you to come link up at our link party…junkintheirtrunk.blogspot.com/2011/11/link-it-up-wednesday-3.html
>Oh my word! I am SOOOOOOOOOOO doing this! We have a train table that the kids are bored with…and now I have a GREAT project for them! Could you please share this with my readers too?
http://www.toysinthedryer.com/2011/11/introducing-fun-stuff-fridays.html
>THIS IS FABULOUS! I have pinned it and and I definitely going to look for a suitable table to do the same. Thanks so much for sharing!
Visiting from Tip Junkie
Lowri
http://papervinenz.blogspot.com/