Our son lives and breathes trains. When he turned 1.5yo I really wanted to get him a Thomas train table (so he would stop using the attoman as the Island of Sodor). However, we lived in an appartment at the time and they all took up the same amount of space: too much of it! They also cost around $200. Yikes!

( ^ My son emersed in the BEST Thomas exhibit ever @ Doscovery Cube LA! 😍)

So I found this IKEA LÄTT children’s table set which is a fraction of the cost. $25 each set. 

I decided to buy two sets to connect together long way with zip ties. We always have little friends over so having 4 chairs was awesome too. (I also lined each table surface with contact paper before fully constructing each table to keep from staining if we were to eventually use them for painting/crafting)

50″ x 19″ was he perfect size. There is a small level difference from the table to the frame but a foam board thickness was the perfect filler. I had to trim the foam boards slightly to fit snug onto the table and in the frame. I used 2 standard foam boards total. 

Here’s a picture of the table on right including fitted foam board. Making it a flatter surface for trains. 

After the foam boards were added I taped a roll of white easel paper over the entire table. The width of the easel paper is the perfect size. 

This is a nice size to fit trains and wooden track or even a blank space to paint or draw your typical train scene with land and sea. I had some dollar store poster board laying around and just played with that. It didn’t last too long because my son wanted to peel it off but we had fun while it lasted. 

As you can see there’s not much room

After 2 years of trains I’ve learned that EVERY surface is a train track no matter what tables are available. On our new bigger house we do not have a train table anymore. The laminate floor is now the train table. His baby brother doesn’t appreciate having to crawl over those track master tracks at all. Lol 

These tables are the best purchase I’ve made because of how versatile they are, light weight to quickly move to another room and cheap in case you need to buy more!  

Thank you IKEA! 👍

Ps. Another idea (if you have a girl) is to use this long table as a tea party play date or birthday! It would be adorable with Alice theme dress up too. 😍