Friday, September 10, 2010

The Souped Up Train Table

A month before Eli's second birthday I stumbled across a neighbor's yardsale. There was a sturdy, well-loved train table for $10...needless to say I had to have it and our neighbors even offered to deliver it to our living room! It needed a makeover so with some paint, paper and elbow grease I made a new train & art station for Eli. He adores it!


Train Table (before)

The two green panels come out and can flip sides. I'm not sure why they do that... it's ugly green on both sides. What's the point? It's scratched up and has been used in a family with four boys but it has good bones! And was TEN dollars!








Train Table (after)

I painted one side of the table with black chalkboard paint. So far it has been pretty durable and washes cleanly away with no problems. We're using sidewalk chalk as that seems the most colorful, vibrant and comes in nice big chunks that are easily handled by a toddler.





Lucas watches Eli play with the trains!

The chalkboard paint has so far held up to having trains, dinosaurs and robots crashing into its surface. Totally necessary in a house with a two year old.









Train Table (side 2)

When the chalkboard panels are flipped I've decoupaged an alphabet robot city. Eli loves identifying the letters & numbers although he does not run his trains or cars along the "roads" I made with paper. The tracks satisfy that need. I used scrapbooking paper from Michael's and lots of Mod Podge for a smooth, durable finish.






Dinosaur Train!

Close -up of the decoupage robot town.












Robot Town (aerial view)

2 comments:

  1. that is SO cool! That gives me some ideas to improve R.'s train table, which is in similar used condition.

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  2. APRIL! I swear you should make mural/multi-media paintings/collage (maybe "COOL-lage"?)to sell! This. Is. Wonderful. :-D

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