IKEA Changing Table Hack - Redux

   Our oldest son is now a free roaming, early-rising banshee, and we desperately need a play area to keep him occupied until we wake, a half hour after him. That is a very precious half hour of sleep at this point.
   After realizing the boys' room had been rather sterile, we moved the nursery rocker to our room in order to free up floor space in their small bedroom. We were looking for additional toy storage, as well as a table that would match the simplicity of the existing beech furniture.

©2013 Zoll - IKEA Sniglar Table Hack   We no longer needed the Sniglar changing table and it was just taking up space. I love the materials, but had no use for another odd table. It did not cost us a lot and it was about to be sent to Goodwill. A good start to any project is having nothing to lose if experimentation should go wrong. So the changing table was a prime hack candidate.
   The nuts and bolts of this hack started with disassembling the table and flipping the tray bottom panels over. This immediately changed the deep trays into dimensional tabletops, which evoked Ikea's  Latt Children's Table.
   This pretty much sealed the deal, now we needed to choose the proper height for the end product. Initially, my wife and I were thinking of building two short, nesting tables from the tall changing table, but when I tested the joints for strength, I realized they would not stand the abuse of toddlers.
   Thinking like a chimpanzee that jumps on everything, I realized that one squat, burly table would be the best use of the materials. All that was left was to cut a rabbet on the end of each leg and drill the holes for the hardware. The resulting table fits well with the elfin suite of furniture and echoes a toddler coffee table for casual reading and play. We also found a short Rubbermaid Roughneck that fits nicely on the bottom shelf, adding crucial storage to the small room.
   Since my regular posting has recently fallen off, I have tried to vary the content as much as possible. This piece just evolved organically from the previous crib hack and it made sense to post the results now. Unfortunately, I have now completely run out of cheap furniture to manipulate and I am left with custom one-off creations and a pile of sawdust. Even though it was not one of the original topics for this blog, it has been a fun arc, while illustrating the mindset behind all of my previous works.

2 comments:

Lauren said...

I have one of these that I'd love to do this with. Do you happen to have any photos or additional detail on your process, tools needed, etc?

Manic Maker said...

Lauren,
Sorry, I do not have any additional photos, but I will do my best to give you more details. Completely disassemble the table, flip over the hardboard panels and that will be the top and bottom to the new table. If my memory serves me right, I cut off the "bottom" of the legs to the new height, then inverted them. This gives you the correct rabbet / notch for the bottom shelf. I used a power saw to cut the notch for the top shelf to rest on, and drilled new holes for the original hardware.

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