IKEA Lack Side Table becomes Lego Table with Tutorial

My almost six year old son loves Legos. Although most days, I think my husband loves Legos just as much.  Our house has Legos everywhere.  When my son was little, he was really into Thomas The Train.  He had a huge train table to play with his trains on.  My husband and I both wished there was something similar to a train table, but for Legos.

My husband kept coming up with the next big “brilliant” idea for a Lego table, but never followed through.  He was going to build one out of wood, but had to draw up plans, cut the wood, built it, etc.  While we were shopping at IKEA one day, I had an epiphany.  Why don’t we use one of IKEA’s inexpensive tables and build our Lego table out of that.  We chose the Lack Side Table in black.  We didn’t want to build a huge Lego table because we have a small house, and Lego Baseplates can get expensive.

Because we’ve been busy with our full-time jobs, Angry Kid, Little League, and several other projects, our Lego Table got put on hold for about a month.  I politely asked (nagged) Angry Husband if we could work on the Lego Table this past weekend.

We used the following items in our Lego Table project:

• IKEA Lack Table
• Lego Baseplates (1 Extra-Large Gray Lego Baseplate and 4 regular green Lego Baseplates)
• Exacto knife
• Level or ruler
• Sharpie or other permanent marker
• Spray Adhesive or Contact Cement (We used spray adhesive, not suggested, we had to fix it)
• Painter’s tape (for temporary securing of the Lego Baseplates to the table)
• Dremel or Laminate Cutting Tool (to trim the edges of the table)

We started with the IKEA Lack Side Table (I have no pictures of ours, but here is the stock photo from IKEA).

We then centered the gray Lego Baseplate in the middle of the table. This Lego Baseplate is extra-large. You could use all green Lego Baseplates, but we made the center look like a “street” and surrounded it with green Lego Baseplates for “grass”.  After the centerpiece was measured out, we taped it down to the table with blue painter’s tape.

We then took the green Lego Baseplates and placed them around the edges of the table.  We temporary secured the green Baseplates to the gray Baseplate with Legos.  Angry Husband then went underneath the edge of where the green Baseplate comes up to the edge of the table, and took a Sharpie to mark the area to be cut (excess Baseplate).   Angry Husband then used a level as a straight edge and cut the green Baseplate on the backside (non bumpy side) with an Exacto Knife.  He said that he did not cut all the way through, but scored it.  He then snapped the plate to break it into two pieces.

After each cut was made, Angry Husband placed the cut pieces of green Lego Baseplate around the edges of the table.  He secured them with Legos to the gray piece.  This may not seem important, but it is VERY important to the layout of this Lego table.  You have to secure the pieces with Legos for proper spacing.  If you butt the pieces of together and just tape them, they will not line up.  Angry Husband showed me this.  It is very easy to make a mistake during this part of the process.  We had a box of loose Legos nearby that we used for placement.

We left a little extra of the green Lego Baseplate hanging off the edge of the table.  Angry Husband said that we needed it, just for error and placement after the glue was laid out.  The excess Baseplate will be trimmed at the end of this project.  After all the Baseplate has been cut and laid out, the table will look like the photograph below.

Angry Husband then taped butcher paper around the edges of the table to project is from the glue, and well excess glue.

We then removed the Lego Baseplates from the table (gently holding them together).  We sprayed the IKEA Lack Side Table with spray adhesive.  We also CAREFULLY flipped over the Lego Baseplates and sprayed the back of them with spray adhesive.  We recommend you use contact cement. We had to fix some edges that did not firmly glue down.

We left the Lego Baseplates and table sit separately for thirty minutes for the glue to set up.  Angry Husband then cut up some cardboard strips to help place the Lego Baseplates onto the table.  Angry Husband laid them out and we gently flipped over the Baseplates.

We then carefully removed the cardboard strips after the Baseplates were centered onto the table. After each strip was removed, we pressed down on the Baseplate of that area.  Angry Husband said that we needed something heavy to place on top of the table to hold the pieces together until the glue was firmly set.  We were very tired as it was late.  He grabbed the first thing he saw, a bucket of screws.

After two days, Angry Husband removed the box of screws from the table.  He also removed the blue painter’s tape that he had on the table for precautions.  He then used a laminate cutter (you can use a Dremel or similar tool) to cut the excess Lego Baseplate from around the edges of the table.

Random Trivia and Information Related to This Project:

• The word “Baseplate” was used 28 times in this blog post.
• I need to let my husband move Lego City Fire Departments.  I went to move my son’s Lego City Fire Department for the staging and pictures for my post, and dropped it.  It literally crumbled into hundreds of tiny pieces.  My son would have been traumatized if he had seen the condition of it.  Angry Husband had to re-build the entire Fire Department.
• KEEP your Lego Kit instructions.  You never know when you have to re-build something.