Lego Storage and Play Table: An Easy IKEA Hack!

Peeps, this is truly my favorite DIY I have ever done.  EVER.  What happened was this: Christmas, followed closely by a Lego-themed birthday party when my sweet boy turned six in January.  This led to a Lego explosion around here, and we needed solutions.  If you have little boys who love to build, you know what I'm talking about.  So I pinned and planned, hemmed and hawed...looked at every solution in the world before I was literally struck over the head with the perfect solution.

I present to you...my Adjustable Height Lego Playtable and Storage Unit!

It combines the Lego storage ideas you may have seen on Pinterest using the Ikea Trofast storage systems, with an adjustable shelf that serves as a surface for building.  We covered one side of the shelf with green Lego baseplates, and left the other smooth for the option of building without baseplates:

The bare side of the shelf.

 (Reversible = awesome!)  But the best part is that I can make this shelf taller as my child grows, so we could conceivably use this unit for, like, ever.

The shelf at counter height.

So, how did I do it?  It was truly not difficult and I am going to walk you through it.  You know it was easy because I did it all by myself; my husband had thrown out his back so he couldn't even assemble anything for me...telling you, it is easy.

Step One: Get Your Supplies
3 Trofast Frames.  I am sure if you are a carpenter or are married to one, there is a cheaper way to go about this, but for me, purchasing 3 frames was the simplest way to go.

Ikea Trofast

You will also need a shelf.  I used 1/2" lumber, cut to 11 and 3/4" deep and 40" wide.  Obviously, your shelf will need to fit your space.  I have found that 40" is very sturdy, and at this thickness it could perhaps be a bit longer but I wouldn't go crazy with the length or it may start to bow in the middle.  You also need to purchase twelve 2.5" long Hex Socket Head Screws.  These will replace 12 of the shorter screws included with the units.

Step Two: Assemble Your Units
Follow Ikea's famously simple directions, with this modification: before attaching the inner wall (the wall that will ultimately face inward toward your shelf) of your shelving unit, place another wall (taken from your third unit you purchased in Step One) on top of it, with the grooves aligned but facing outwards, like so:

Now, attach both walls to the frame simultaneously using the 2.5" Hex Screws you purchased in Step One.  You will use these instead of the screws included with the Trofast, to accommodate for the additional width introduced by attaching two walls instead of just one.

Step Three: Measure Carefully and Install
You will be latching your units to the wall, so it is essentially to measure carefully so that your units are precisely the same distance apart from each other as your shelf is wide.

Please use the latches included with the units to latch them to the wall.  They are surprisingly stable when standing on their own, but don't let that fool you into thinking you don't need latches...your kids will definitely climb on them at some point!

Step Four: Organize that Sucker!
Insert your pre-cut shelf into the grooves, and enjoy your awesome play surface!

We waited a good six weeks while green baseplates were on back-order, and just played with the shelf like this.  In fact, the back-ordered baseplates are what delayed this post so long!  But of course we wanted baseplates, so when we finally got them, I glued them on with E-6000 adhesive, making sure to space them with legos:

I sealed the rest of the shelf with clear furniture wax for durability, love my Johnson's furniture wax.

I used my Silhouette to make labels for Trofast bins.  I chose to organize my son's Legos by themes, and it has worked extremely well.  He has no problem finding anything or putting things away.  Gone are the days of Lego explosions all over the place!

I also used this opportunity to organize our Lego manuals, using clear plastic sleeves and a binder:

Above the unit, I used the excess wood from having my shelf cut by Lowe's to create another shelf, using brackets from Ikea.  The small plastic bins are being used for smaller storage needs, and most of them are currently empty, leaving us room to collect more Legos!

I also made some vinyl wall art in Lego's signature font (find it here):

I love everything about this project, but you want to know my favorite part?  It's this:

P.S. Lovin' the Linky's at:








Making the World Cuter

Pain.

It’s been almost a year since I saw a doctor for fatigue, which led me to a diagnosis of chronic migraines and treatment using Topamax, an anti-seizure medication.  For almost a year I have been tracking my pain on a calendar: red for pain, yellow for fatigue, green for “Hallelujah I actually feel good!”  There have been woefully few greens.  Finally I got tired of the side-effects of Topamax (mostly the inability to focus, which was becoming a true impairment), and I am almost completely weaned off and trying to cope with my migraines without medication.  Lifestyle changes, less stress, that sort of thing.

All this to say, I feel pretty intimate with pain.  I have given it a lot of thought in the last year, read a lot about it, and have been trying to understand it.  Why does God allow pain?  Why do some of us suffer a lot—some every day—and other people seem to just coast through?  Really, it’s the same question people have been asking forever: why is there suffering?  The same question Siddhartha wondered about.  The same question non-Christians ask about God.  Why would a loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God allow suffering and pain?

The main argument here is that God loved us so much that he gave us free will; free will leads to choice; choices lead to pain and suffering.  God’s creation, which could have been perfect had we just left well enough alone, is not perfect because we have exercised free will.  We have chosen to exclude God.  We think we can do better without Him.  We have historically and continually pushed Him away, and He has honored that choice, the same way that He also honors the choice to welcome Him with mercy and grace and forgiveness.  We come to Him freely, and He returns love freely to us.  Without this ability to choose, we wouldn't have been the beings He longed for.  Because God longed for us to love Him freely, He needed to create free will, and therefore the possibility of pain, suffering and evil.  C.S. Lewis says it this way: “Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”  C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain.

If you have a hard time with the logic of that argument, watch this little video which makes it super easy to understand:

But what about pain not arising out of free will?  What about my migraines?  Childhood illnesses?  Famine?  What about losing a loved one?  What about a healthy man I know who was suddenly struck down with three life-threatening illnesses at the same time?  I struggle with this question, and some of the “pat” answers have always seemed a little empty to me.  But I was totally floored recently when I read this, and I need to share it with you:

“The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word ‘love’, and look on things as if man were the centre of them.  Man is not the centre.  God does not exist for the sake of man.  Man does not exist for his own sake. “Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”  Rev. 4:11.  We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest “well pleased.”  The Problem of Pain, 40-41.  (Emphasis mine). 

This was a new perspective for me, and while it doesn't answer the question of why God allows suffering, it gave me a new perspective on suffering itself.  In our culture which celebrates everything “Me,” including documenting every movement on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and in our evangelical culture which celebrates how I love God, how I need him, how I come to him to worship, the idea of me being beside the point is a little...different.  Yes, I believe how I approach God is important.  But to take me out of it a little, and remember that I am also the object of His love...well, that changes everything.

So what does it mean (when I am on Day Six of a crushing migraine and would sooner drive a pickaxe into my forehead than look at this computer) that I was made for God to love me, and not (primarily) vice versa?  It means that my pain is beside the point.  Or rather, it means that I need to continue to worship him, even when in pain. Continue to allow Him to love me, by inviting Him in.  In the face of His magnificent, overwhelming, tender love for me, I find that my suffering truly pales.  I suspect that response is what He’s after.  When we are at our most physically strained, when we are at our most emotionally drained, when we have been beaten down by a world that is fallen and falling around us, the positioning of my soul toward God as it says, “yes, God, you are holy,” that is the fulfillment of His love for us. 

I was praying recently, about coming down off of my medication.  Worried about an onslaught of headaches, I asked, “God, please will you cure me?”  God told me no, that I will still sometimes have pain.  But He asked me, in the infinitely patient way He has with my stubborn self, to keep my eyes on Him anyway.  I don’t know how to always do that, but if I try, and manage it even part of the time, I trust that the effort alone will bear enough fruit to nourish me as I suffer. 

On Easter, this glorious holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ, it’s worth it to mention that God knows our pain.  He experienced every ounce of it on the cross.  You are not alone, no matter what you suffer, for Christ has already experienced it with you.  In fact, God had to become man in order to experience pain in the first place, and He chose to do so facing the pain not only of whipping and crucifixion but also of every human sin and anguish.  He did it in order to know you, the one He truly loves.  He created you to love you, and then He joined you in your sufferings as well.  He is with you now, loving you and wanting nothing more than your love, freely given, in all circumstances.