When I was putting the bookcase back together after painting the front room, I came across a photo of my very first DIY project. This thing has to be 10 years old at least. Before I even knew what a blog was.
The table was a Christmas gift for Tom's nephews and I was so darn proud of it. Unfortunately I only took one picture of the finished product, and no pictures of the steps taken to get there. Please excuse the Nascar blanket thrown over the couch - it was that era too.
The table started out as a plain coffee table that my mom found for me at a resale shop. I was in college and didn't have very much furniture of my own. The center had a glass insert, and the shelf underneath was perfect for storing remotes, books, cookies...you know, the usual. Years later we upgraded our furniture and I almost got rid of this guy, but then inspiration hit.
First I removed the glass insert (I wonder what happened to it?), and stripped the honey-coloured finish off of the wood. I remember I then restained it in a dark, dark shade (think ebony) with a poly topcoat. But I didn't like it, so I stripped that off too and tried again. I think this might be Minwax's Provincial.
There is a mesh net in the center well to hold all of the loose Legos. It was the bottom of an unused laundry bag - something like this:
We glued the raw edge of the bag around the frame of the well, and then finished it with some white cord as the glue was a little rough to the touch.
We bought a huge sheet of grey Lego baseplate and cut it to fit the two flat surfaces on the top. We just glued it right to the table. This gave the kids a place to build at a comfortable height, and all of their Legos were right there close by. There was some baseplate left over, so we cut it in two and glued each piece to the edge of the center shelf, to give them a couple of extra places to build.
Nowadays, you can find hundreds of homemade Lego tables out there, but back then, we were feeling pretty original. We had seen a couple of pre-fab, factory-made tables, but I liked the sturdiness of ours. And with that solid wood, I think it's something that could get passed down from generation to generation. Do you think Legos will be around in another 60 years?
