...because home doesn't happen overnight.

That title has more to do with how I’m feeling today than the content of this post.  (I’m running a little ragged.)  Still, the phrase “I think I can, I think I can” conjures up visions of The Little Engine That Could.  And The Little Engine That Could was a train.  And kids like trains.  And I have kids.  And my kids need a train table for the trains they like.  There.  You got it.  This post is about a train table.  Whew.  I’m spent.

Okay, moving on.  Right before we moved to Ohio, we were offered a used train table by our dear friends (that we miss!), the Streitmatters.  We paid $15 for it.  Layne was in heaven and we were grateful for scooping up such a great deal.  It was very similar to the train table pictured below except that it was white instead of wood tone and included 4 plastic bins for storage underneath.  Also, the landscaping on the top wasn’t as realistic as the one shown below.  Besides the white frame, everything else was primary colored…red, green, blue, yellow.  (Wait, aren’t there only 3 primary colors?!  I told you I was spent.) 

Sadly, I don’t have a true ‘before’ picture of our train table.  (That was waaaay before I even knew what a blog was.)  But, hopefully, you have a good idea of what it looked like.  Pretty kid-ish.  I’m not knockin’ the train table.  I just knew I could make it fit into our decor a little better because, remember, I like to tweak.  So, I got to thinking that I could probably paint over all the stuff I didn’t like and my kids would still play on it.  I hunted down this image of a painted train table online for inspiration.

Taking cues from the inspiration table, I decided to go with an aqua-celery-khaki-taupe color scheme.  I had sample-sized paint cans (the sample sizes are great for little projects like these) from Lowe’s mixed accordingly and bought khaki-colored spray paint.  First, I primed the tabletop.  After the primer was dry, I sketched out a rough drawing of my new landscape right on the primer with a pencil.  I labeled each area with either an “a” for aqua, “g” for light green, “G” for dark green, “k” for khaki and “t” for taupe to determine my color layout.  It was my take on paint-by-numbers.  It let me keep track of where each color should go.  Then I simply hand painted each area with its corresponding paint color.  In order for it to withstand the beatings of my 2 lil’ boys, I finished it off with 2 hefty coats of polyurethane.  I used the khaki spray paint to update the plastic storage bins under the table.  *When spray painting plastic, you must make sure to use spray paint that specifically adheres to plastic.*  Here’s the more serene train table hanging out in our guest/play/craft room (i.e. the ‘everything’ room). 

As non-kidlike as it looks, I assure you that my boys play on it just as much as before it was painted.  In fact, I even added a dock for them to have somewhere to play with their boats.  Guests can stay in the room without feeling like they’re spending the night at Toys ‘R Us.  It’s a win-win situation.

2 Comments

29.June.2010

Looks great! I’ve been trolling Craigslist for one of these things and would definitely paint it if needs be. :)

03.October.2010

This is fabulous! My mom is always talking about getting my son a train table but there is only so much primary color-invasion I can take – and I’m not afraid of a little paint!