DIY Light table and sensory table

So excited to share this DIY with you!!

(Go ahead and skip to the pictures if you want to miss all the fluff =D)

I am currently redoing my sons bed room to make a "big kid" room for him since he is going to be 3 and all. =D I knew that I wanted to make a lot more room for learning activities for him as well as my daughter. I scoured the Internet to come up with ideas and I found all sorts of amazing things. Busy bags, sensory bins, crafts, learning activities etc. But one thing I absolutely LOVED was this light table that I saw on this website.

There are all sorts of really great DIY's out there for a cheap and easy light table like this and this and this OR you could just go out and buy one like this or this. Now, I don't know about you, but I can't exactly afford a $375 light table.

My house is amazing, but the kids' rooms are relatively small (I am sure there are smaller out there!). So when I started thinking about E's room redo my main objective was space saving. Which leads us to the light table AND sensory table all in one!

I sat in Lowe's for about an hour scheming up this little number. As I sat there all I could think about was my grandpa and how he would have loved to jump at the opportunity to help me (which I definitely needed!). I sat on some planks of wood and drew out ideas and scratched them out and wrote down numbers and scratched them out, until I finally came up with my idea. I am NOT going to upload the picture of my awesome drawing because it is comparable to a 4 year old! =D

So without further ado, the light table.

Materials:
*1x3x8 premium furring strip (x2)= $2.90
*1x8x10 (maybe 12? sorry)= $9 (something) HAH I'm not so great at this pricing thing.
*Table legs (mine were 6 in) (x4)= $8 (a little less but I can't remember the exact amount, man I probably should write this down next time!)
*Plastic top (not sure if this is plexiglass or not, Lowe's brand is Optix here) I got the 24x18 and it was 2.2 thick. I had originally bought, I think, 0.8 thickness, but it was too flimsy for my liking (sadly, because that one was only like $9!) = $17.98
*frosting spray paint= $4.97 (lowes, may be cheaper elsewhere. You could probably get it at a craft store and use a 40% off coupon!)
*spray paint (if you want it) =$3.97 (walmart)

TOTAL=$47.30 (give or take)

Now, when I originally started I was aiming for super cheap. But as I started going i knew I needed something super sturdy, something that will last and something that could also double as a sensory table.

The Tutorial!

1) Cut your wood to the length you desire. I chose to cut mine the length of the plastic top, so 19 (to leave room for the ends) by 24 in---I had mine cut at Lowe's
*I chose to have a slatted bottom because it was cheaper HAH but you can certainly chose to do a solid base---my slats were 24in (x6) out of the 1x3x8*

2) Get your hubby =D Just kidding, if you are handy props to you. I can do some things, but I needed his help a tad on this.

make a basic 4 sided box

(please ignore my husbands sexy legs in the background =D)

3) He then took one of the leftover 1x3x8 pieces and put them on the edge of the bottom of the box so that it is creating a ledge for the slats to sit in to (and also a place for the legs to go in to)

4) Then we flipped the box over and attached the slats...I ended up measuring them wrong and didn't have enough of the 1x3x8 board, but thankfully the leftover from the 1x8x10 fit JUST perfect in the base.

5) next we added the legs

hubby just drilled a hole into the bottom and screwed the legs on





6) Then I took it outside and spray painted it black

7) I took the frosting spray paint and sprayed one side of the plastic top (the sprayed side will go towards the light, the side that you do NOT play on) this helps keep the light from being right in your face

8) Now insert the light and you are ready to go!

9) Now it's done! I originally wanted to be able to lay my top inside so that it was flesh up again but it's not cut perfect so it just lays on top, which is just fine with me!

Here are my little beings enjoying their new light table!



SENSORY TABLE

All you have to do is take off the plastic, take out the light and you have a perfect table to play rice, beans, noodles or whatever else you want to do!

Thanks for stopping by! Stay tuned for my next post, I am sharing my first ever IKEA HACK, hacked into a perfect size desk for my 3 year old! So excited about this one!

Bethani

PS sorry for the horrible pictures, I can't find my card reader for my camera at the moment :-/