Making Rounds...

Was thrilled to pop into ohdeedoh today to spot something really familiar, my Ikea Latt Table hack! If you haven't already done so check out the original post A table for two! this is really getting around!

Children's ikea

I love Ikea for so many reasons but since becoming a parent I love and appreciate them even more. Each year I anxiously wait for the new catalogue to come out, usually checking it out online before I even receive my copy in the mail. I affectionately refer to it as my "bible" and within a day or two I've got it and any new products memorized! anyone that knows me that I recognize most product by name. I never used to pay much attention to the children's section though, besides for admiring their styling.

A couple months ago when our wee one starting getting mobile and into EVERYTHING we decided it was time to up the level of our baby proofing. We were going to need a baby gate for the upstairs. Many places we looked to offered pressure gates... which were definitely not an option for the top of the stairs or plastic, ick! never mind that we were planning on putting it about a meter away from the stairs in the hallway which although not especially wide was still wider than most gates can accommodate. Finally I stumbled onto the Ikea Patrull line of safety items. We got the wooden Patrull Fast safety gate, problem solved on all counts. Gate is wooden and drills into the wall (comes with a dummy proof wall stencil so you know EXACTLY where to drill), it's adjustable and the whole gate swings open, we affixed it so that when it's not in use it can be up against the wall in the hall.

It's really hard to babyproof your kitchen so besides for locking the cabinets under the sink with all the poisonous stuff and keeping knives/sharp objects out of reach, we pretty much figured that we wouldn't be letting our little one hang out in the kitchen very often. While flipping through the latest kitchen catologue I spied yet another ingenious Patrull product, the stainless steel stove top guard. This fits beautifully in our kitchen and the stainless steel is really nice, most importantly it protects our little one and makes our kitchen a more child friendly place.

Ikea Patrull stovetop guard.

While I was supposed to be shopping babyproofing I couldn't help but notice some awesome toys. In my defense I had to walk halfway through the toy zone to get the gate...

I just love this little Fabler mouse, sort of reminds me of Angelina Ballerina.

The Duktig line is great! this pots and pans set is just what we needed for our play kitchen!

The Mula walking/rattling push toy is a wooden version of the classic popcorn push toy, with a much less irritating sound.... now if they only had it in stock...

My toddler is obsessed with Old MacDonald and animals in general. The soft Ikea minnen toy farm set would be perfect for totting around and setting up impromptu barn yard dances!

On the way to the checkout I couldn't help myself and had to swing by the "As is" section (old habits are hard to break!) and I found the most awesome find... can't spill the beans yet but another Ikea hack is on it's way! stay tuned...

A table for two

For my daughters first birthday I wanted to get her "toddler" presents that would take her into her second year and beyond so I suggested my parents get her a wooden table and chair set. They got her the Ikea Latt set which I'm sure many of you either own or have seen and contemplated buying. Ikea is a fantastic source of well designed and affordable children's furniture and decor, but things tend to be rather generic and instantly recognizable. That's why I love Ikea Hacker as a constant source of inspiration for what can be achieved using Ikea products and a little out of the box thinking. With that in mind I wanted to personalize our latt set and make it toddler crayon scribble proof. The Latt tabletop and chair seats are made of fiberboard and painted white, they claim to be wipeable but white and a box of crayolas don't mix very well and I didn't want to have to scrub it down everyday....

So I thought why not "reupholster" the top and and chairs with some cheery wipeable laminate.

To start I wanted to treat the wood, but am wary of using shellac or varnish on kids stuff because of the VOC's... so I decided to give it a little oil treatment using some natural olive lamp oil. I used a clean dry cloth to rub in the oil, two coats with a couple hours to let the oil absorb a little, which brought out a really nice sheen to the beech wood....

Next step was to "reupholster" the surfaces. I removed the table top and seats and covered them in laminated fabric (similar to oilcloth, a lot thinner though....). I used half a yard of Michael Miller Green Dandy Damask Laminate cotton. Half a yard was just enough, so your pieces need to be exact... pulled all corners taught and secured it with some double sided tape (do you see a recurring theme here?...) slid the top and seats back in, and voila!

I'm very happy with the finished product, the set really holds in own now and I love how nice and bright it looks, what do you think?