Design
I think I'm warmed up now. On to the big project (there's still a few more in the works-more on those later-I'll work on them as time permits while parts dry/cure, etc., on this one…)
A little background info…
So, our kids have taken over the dining room table as their personal Lego emporium. We have crates of the little plastic blocks stacked up, blocking access to the table. Come holiday time in a few weeks, the Legos will be relegated to the laundry room in exile, only to reemerge when all the company leaves. This Lego squatters situation cannot be maintained.
I had an idea a month back, to get a Lack table from Ikea and add Lego baseplates to it, just like they show in the Youtube videos if you search for Lego Lack Table. But my wife wanted something a little more grandiose. Like this:
I saw the construction and it looked pretty simple, rustic even. Basic, really. A few boxes with legs just screwed on the outside. Really? That had to be pretty cheap-wait, what? You want how much for this?
Uh…no. Absolutely not. I will not condone paying that much for something that looks like it took an hour to knock together out of store-bought lumber.
I took 10 minutes to come up with a plan based on the above picture (with the above price as motivation) and sketched it out for finance committee approval. I used all my selling skills to push the idea that we'd get our dining room table back and keep the Legos in one neat and tidy place. And give the kids a place to play together instead of climbing on the dining room chairs-our youngest is fond of doing what the older ones do and I know he's going to fall out of those chairs sooner or later…
Plan: approved.
This bad boy will have an MDF top, set inside a box to give it a bit of a lip (maybe 1 1/2" inches) to keep the pieces from spilling all over the floor. On the wings, I'm going to install bins under a removable section of the MDF play area for quick clean up. Lift the section, scoop the Legos into the bin, replace the section and done. I'm also going to add-at my wife's gentle suggestion-two drawers under the main table. There will be plenty of storage area for the bins we currently use on our dining room table to fit under the drawers. I'll put casters on the two rear legs, making them a little shorter, but giving us an easy way to maneuver this thing (I'm expecting it to weigh 100+ pounds).
It didn't take long to convince my wife I could build this Lego table-or one pretty close to the picture above-for a fraction of the price pictured above, using lumber from the Borg. Well, she had one stipulation-that I use nicer wood than tubafore studs-so I went to Menard's and came home with the appropriate amount of milled poplar boards!
Time to store everything in the lumber rack above the garage door and plan out my first steps while things get acclimated to my shop. Tune in next time for the first cuts!
The Big Project of 2015
I think I'm warmed up now. On to the big project (there's still a few more in the works-more on those later-I'll work on them as time permits while parts dry/cure, etc., on this one…)
A little background info…
So, our kids have taken over the dining room table as their personal Lego emporium. We have crates of the little plastic blocks stacked up, blocking access to the table. Come holiday time in a few weeks, the Legos will be relegated to the laundry room in exile, only to reemerge when all the company leaves. This Lego squatters situation cannot be maintained.
I had an idea a month back, to get a Lack table from Ikea and add Lego baseplates to it, just like they show in the Youtube videos if you search for Lego Lack Table. But my wife wanted something a little more grandiose. Like this:
I saw the construction and it looked pretty simple, rustic even. Basic, really. A few boxes with legs just screwed on the outside. Really? That had to be pretty cheap-wait, what? You want how much for this?
Uh…no. Absolutely not. I will not condone paying that much for something that looks like it took an hour to knock together out of store-bought lumber.
I took 10 minutes to come up with a plan based on the above picture (with the above price as motivation) and sketched it out for finance committee approval. I used all my selling skills to push the idea that we'd get our dining room table back and keep the Legos in one neat and tidy place. And give the kids a place to play together instead of climbing on the dining room chairs-our youngest is fond of doing what the older ones do and I know he's going to fall out of those chairs sooner or later…
Plan: approved.
The Design
This bad boy will have an MDF top, set inside a box to give it a bit of a lip (maybe 1 1/2" inches) to keep the pieces from spilling all over the floor. On the wings, I'm going to install bins under a removable section of the MDF play area for quick clean up. Lift the section, scoop the Legos into the bin, replace the section and done. I'm also going to add-at my wife's gentle suggestion-two drawers under the main table. There will be plenty of storage area for the bins we currently use on our dining room table to fit under the drawers. I'll put casters on the two rear legs, making them a little shorter, but giving us an easy way to maneuver this thing (I'm expecting it to weigh 100+ pounds).
It didn't take long to convince my wife I could build this Lego table-or one pretty close to the picture above-for a fraction of the price pictured above, using lumber from the Borg. Well, she had one stipulation-that I use nicer wood than tubafore studs-so I went to Menard's and came home with the appropriate amount of milled poplar boards!
Time to store everything in the lumber rack above the garage door and plan out my first steps while things get acclimated to my shop. Tune in next time for the first cuts!