Ikea Latt Table Hack
Add a little flair to the simple wood Ikea Latt table with this inexpensive and easy upgrade!
One more week and we’ll be DONE with this playroom for the One Room Challenge!
Well, I guess I should say “done” because are you ever really done?
Plus, I know this space one day won’t be a playroom, but more of a lounge area for our babes and their friends (*wipes tears away*)
In case you’re new here, don’t forget to check out all of our previous weeks of this project because we’ve done some super cool things!
If you’re new around these parts, you may not know that we built a DIY desk in the dormer in our playroom for Charlotte when her school went virtual in March of 2020.
Right outside this playroom sits our home office that we actually redid the last time that I participated in the One Room Challenge.
The desk in the playroom is more for Charlotte, but if there are art projects involved with Josiah, I need to keep a closer eye on him so we got him this little Ikea Latt table and chair set on one of our millions of trips to Ikea.
Aaaaaand because I waited a bit too long to do anything with this, he got a hold of it with markers. Oops.
However, this quickly made me realize that I wouldn’t be able to keep this semi cute without painting it to hide some of the accidents.
If you have this kids table, here’s how you can hack it with a couple supplies and a couple of hours!
Ikea Latt Table Hack
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- Ikea Latt table
- Paint color of your choice (we used Sherwin Williams Naval because we had some leftover, but some of these mauve paint colors could be STUNNING!)
- Rub ‘n Buff in Gold Leaf
- Frog tape or other painter’s tape
- Optional: Clear acrylic containers
- Optional: Velcro Command strips
Because I didn’t want to mess up the top since it’s dry erase, I decided to tape off the top so I wouldn’t get paint on it.
You could also just paint this before you put it together, but I didn’t feel like taking it completely apart just to paint it.
Yes, it’s easy to put together, but I’m lazy and have little ones running wild behind me.You can see that I’ve actually taped off the screws, but I ended up not doing that with the chairs and I like having the screws painted because then it blends in with everything else and they’re less noticeable.
To each their own, though. You do you.
If you don’t want the screws painted, you’ll just need to unscrew them a bit so there’s room to get a paintbrush behind them.
You can start with the table or chairs, but I knew the table would be easier since it had more nooks and crannies.
If you’re going to not paint the screws, use your paintbrush to get behind them.
I also used a paintbrush to paint the inside of the chair where it meets the white dry erase seat.
Once the table and chairs are painted, measure how far up you want your Rub and Buff to go.
For the table, I chose to do 4″ and for the chair legs, I measured 2″. You can always do more or less, but I felt this would be just the right amount.
This is actually the first time I had ever used Rub and Buff and I was really really excited. I had seen so many other projects that use it and was looking for the right time to do my own.
I guess I think since I can do my own DIY abstract art now I am full of myself at the moment so I’m gonna ride that gravy train as long as I can until I do another disaster DIY project and crush my own spirits.
I digress.
Tape off the legs of the table and 2 chairs so you will have a clean line with your Rub n Buff.
Alternatively, you could not do this for a more abstract, unfinished look. I think that could look super cool!
From all the research I did prior to using Rub n Buff, they said the easiest way to apply it was with your finger.
So here we go. I applied it to both the table legs and the chair legs.
Where I’m applying with my finger, you can see how it goes on. It’s a little thick and sometimes gritty, but you can see in the foreground how it dries which is super clean and not gritty at all.
Research also says to wash your hands soon after using. So I also did that. But was left with a literal gold finger for a hot minute until I could get it to fully come off.
I love the final look of this!
This is the wall right outside of our playroom that’s currently in disarray because I’m trying to get final touches on it as we speak.
On this side, I have Josiah’s Crayola Color Wonder markers which are these markers that only work on special paper and so he can’t get them all over the floor or walls which is awesome!
This table is the perfect size for Josiah, but it’s a little small for Charlotte now, but we will soon have another little nugget who I’m sure will like to color so on the other side, I added crayons and these Crayola Colors of the World skin tone colored pencils that I got for Charlotte.
I’m so happy with how this turned out!
I chose the navy since we have the navy Ikea Alex drawer units and then the gold matches our hacked Ikea desk chairs.
In case you don’t have an Ikea near you, you could always try a quick Google or Pinterest search to find a fun way to do another type of kids table or you could try this children’s table makeover here!
I gotta say we have a LOT of loose ends to tie up in this room in the next few days but I’m gonna do everything we can to get it finished because this room has been on our “to do” list since we moved in this house in 2017. Yowza!
