Hey Everyone! Looking to make a special gift for the train lover in your family?
This was a fun project to work on. My son LOVES trains! Especially Thomas! When we would go anywhere that had a train table getting away was hard. The one below was in Barns and Nobel and of course I thought, I can make it, and make it better! At least cheaper for sure! Anything wood and Thomas is super expensive. I started in October collecting items I wanted for the train table that would be Caden’s Christmas gift. I bought most of my tracks on eBay. I would look for “lots” of trains and tracks that were reasonable. Search for eBay items early so hopefully you can bid and win and not have to do buy now.
My dad and I had a rough idea of what we wanted and needed. So, off to Home Depot we went. We knew we wanted it to be big enough for a hole in the center but small enough for the area we wanted to put it in. I knew I wanted 3 of the sides to be closed so we could use the area below for storage of tracks and trains. Once we built the frame for the size of the top, we made supports. (For this project I did not do measurements or take notes like I should have to pass on. I will post a lot of pictures of the underside, feel free to email or comment with questions.) After all the supports were done, I went back with a Dremel and made sure all the nails were flush and not going to poke or snag anything. This was fun- remember to wear safety goggle for this project there will be lots of sparks and shavings flying around. Now it was time to determine the size of the hole- we made it and decided we didn’t want to have to have a perfect circle so we just had fun with the shape. I again took the Dremel and sanded down the edges to make sure there were no splinters or rough edges. Then we flipped it over and I wanted to add a side rail to stop the tracks and trains from rolling off the table. I used the Dremel to smooth these edges as well. Now the table was done we did let him climb in so we could see if it was too tall it seemed just right. He couldn’t reach the outside edges from the center but when I would build the tracks, I would make one close to the inside and one on the outside so he could go around the table or in the center.
I took it over to our nice neighbor’s house and painted the table in his garage. Luckily the shiplap was already white so I just taped it off so I didn’t accidentally paint it. I painted some water and added glitter for fun, some roads, and lots of green grass. I love how it turned out! Caden played with this table for hours and years. He is 8 now and we are just getting it put away. I hope this inspires you to create something you’ve been thinking of.
Here’s a little train video for you- I love the cute little choo choo and Ho Ho Ho. OMG I love this kid!! I wish he were little forever!
Here’s some closeups of the bottom and some details. Did we need that much support? Probably not, but we weren’t sure how much the tracks would weigh over time and in case he climbed on top.
