Friday, January 20, 2012

Our new LEGO table!

Thanks to the wonderful world of Pinterest, the hubby and I thought up a plan to finally organize the many tubs of LEGO's we have around the house. We also wanted the storage area to double as a play area, because, the farther the kids have to go to play with the blocks, the more likely they are to end up all over the house again! I found a post over on Ikea Hackers that really got the gears in my brain going. We have two boys that both want to play at the same time, so we wanted something that was free standing, could be accessed on at least two sides, and that we could move to a different area of the house if we wanted. Here is what we came up with.

First, here are the materials that we used:


1 - IKEA Trofast Frame, White
9 - IKEA Trofast Storage boxes
3 - LEGO X-Large Gray Baseplates
You will also need some contact adhesive, and make sure it is for plastic. They can be found at craft stores, Lowes, Home Depot, etc.



Next, I will walk you through the assembly.....I took notes while the hubby did all the work! ;)

1. First you will need to assemble your Trofast system. Simply follow the instructions that were provided by Ikea.
2. Once the Trofast is assembled, you will need to get out your LEGO baseplates.You will be using two full plates and one that will need to be cut. Please see the pictures below for the measurements.


This is the size we cut the third plate to.

3. Now it is time to line up your plates as they will sit on the top of the Trofast. You will also need to make sure to leave the proper gap in between each plate to ensure that LEGO's will be able to be used across the entire surface. To do this, please see the pictures below for explanation.

Mark where your base plates are going to sit on top of the Trofast.

This is how much room we had on either side of the plates.

There is a raised lip on both ends of the Trofast. The plates will butt right up to them.

Make sure you leave a gap in between the plates so that LEGO's will snap into this area.

The best way to get the correct spacing for your gaps is by using LEGO's! =) Just keep pulling the plates away from each other until you can get a LEGO to snap in....do this all the way down the base plate

4. Now that you have your plates cut, setup and marked on the table, it's time to make it permanent. My husband glued the two end pieces first and then placed the center piece down. While the adhesive still allowed some movement, he repeated the step above with the LEGO's to get the proper spacing. This time though, he left the LEGO's snapped until the adhesive dried to ensure that there was no shifting. Your dry time will depend on the adhesive you use.

5. While the glue dried, my kids and I sat down and sorted the LEGO's by color and placed them in their bins.


6. HAVE FUN WITH YOUR NEW LEGO TABLE! =)


My boys couldn't wait to start building on it!





Well, I hope I explained this well enough for someone to be able to make it themselves. This was my first time posting a how to =)

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I'll try and answer it as quickly as I can.