Latt Hack

Ethan's big Christmas present from us is going to be a table and chairs. I was checking Amazon and most were $100+. Then I remembered seeing a set at Ikea last time we were there so we made a trip out. We picked up the popular Latt table. Only problem, it's pretty boring on it's own. But for only $20, I figured we could make it more fun.

Before: simple, but plain table

I headed off to Pinterest for some ideas. We still had green paint leftover from the bookshelf Josh made so we figured we'd just use that. I decided to stick with the robot theme since Ethan is still a big robot fan.

I used the seat bottom to trace the fabric and then cut it out. I didn't worry too much about perfect lines since the ends would be covered when they slide into the wood. We used spray adhesive to attach the fabric to the top. A lot of people mentioned it didn't fit well with the fabric or they had to cut it down, but it fit fine for us since we didn't fold the fabric over the edge.

We decided to combine a few different ideas we saw. We did a chalkboard table top using the Rustoleum spray paint. Then we added plexiglass on top of the table top and the seat tops (easy to remove). This way if he eats or does other crafts, the chalkboard doesn't get ruined and it's easy to wipe clean. It will also keep the fabric in better condition on the chairs. Bonus: He can use dry erase crayons/markers on the plexi for another work surface.

After: bright colors and chalkboard paint

The bar and orange/green buckets were from Ikea also. They'll hold his chalk, markers, crayons, and paint. I like that I can easily remove all of it when he's not using the table so there's less chance of writing on the wall. We were going to attach a roll of easel paper, but I felt like it would get in the way, so instead I bought a Crayola easel paper pad. The sheets are pretty much the perfect size for the tabletop and half the cost of the Melissa and Doug pad.

After: robot chairs with plexi

I LOVE how it turned out! Josh did a great job painting it and putting it all together. I can't wait til he gets up Christmas morning and sees this. He loves sitting in chairs his size and each trip to Ikea, he runs right up to the table and sits down.

It ended up costing probably around $75 after all materials so it wasn't super cheap, but it was still less than any I saw elsewhere and it's got more features and it's personalized. The highest cost was the plexiglass so you could save around $20 by skipping that. If you do decide to do the plexi, go to Lowes. They'll cut it to size for you, Home Depot said they wouldn't cut it for us.