Train Table

The other day my father-in-law said, “Miles sure does love trucks, trains, and tractors” and I replied, “yep, he sure does have this boy thing figured out”. 

The only logical thing to get Miles for his birthday was a train table.  I’ve been scoping them out for a quite a while.  Seems like almost all of our friends have one.  Even our friends with older kids have one and it’s turned into a lego/train table, so I knew it would be something he wouldn’t outgrow quickly. When I looked online I was shocked they were about $100-200.  That’s when I realized a train table was about the same height as a coffee table.  I started looking at garage sales for something that would fit what I had in mind—turns out Jordan and Sydney had one they were getting rid of, so I snatched it up for frizzle (mom, that means free).  The cool thing about this table is it lifts up and becomes what I assume is a large TV tray (you can kind of see it in one of the pics below).

Next, I turned to my BFF Pinterest to see if they had any DIY version that I could replicate (I wanted to make sure it had roads for his cars too). I didn’t really find a tutorial, nor did I see a train table I liked so I found something similar to what I wanted and then just decided to wing it.

I first did a couple coats of paint & primer.  We have a can left over from painting odd cabinet, baseboard and fireplace projects around the house.  I figured this paint is strong enough for cabinet doors, it should be able to withstand tornados grubby toddler hands with trains in grip.

After that I mixed craft paints to get the color roads and grass I wanted.  If I was to do it again, I would have painted all the grass first and then painted the roads over the grass.  

Ty was concerned this wasn’t really a project from both of us, if I did all the painting so he helped where he could—base coat and the yellow dotted lines.  Turns out he doesn’t have the patience or steady hand for the detail work.

I personalized it with a little painted sign stating, “Welcome to Miles City” and wrote a birthday note on the bottom side.  In the words of Tyler, “we should personalize it, in case he takes it to college”. 

After all that painting, we coated with a few top coats of clear spray paint (yes, they make that) because you know, this baby’s got to make it through years of flippy cup... J

As you can see, he likes it.  Stay tuned to see if he's still using it in college...