DIY IKEA Hack: LATT Children's Table & Chairs

Because everyone loves an IKEA hack, right?! You might have seen that last year I made over the classic IKEA play kitchen for my daughter, which she absolutely loves - so I decided to try my hand at the LATT child's table and chairs. It's the perfect size for little people, and is made of wood (untreated pine - the upcycler's dream!) so is a real bargain at just £20. Obviously I wanted to put my own twist on it though, so here's how I upcycled the LATT table and chairs into a stylish child's drawing station complete with chalkboard top ...

The table & chairs before: Image courtesy of IKEA

I've also put together a video tutorial for this which you can watch here, or keep scrolling for the step-by-step instructions...

The table comes with two chairs, and is made of an untreated pine - perfect for painting without the need for sanding or a primer! The top, however, is made of a plastic-coated mdf, so needs priming before you can do anything else. I used Rustoleum Plastic Primer which you simply spray on, and I gave it two coats to make sure I'd covered the top completely. Definitely do this outside though as it's really smelly.

Next up it was time to paint the table and chairs. I decided to go with Farrow & Ball Sulking Room Pink for the table and and Farrow & Ball Railings on the chairs, which I hoped would give a nice contrast between the two. I had these colour-matched by Decorating Centre Online, which I've used before and would absolutely recommend as the quality is great, and you'll save yourself a fortune! The even better thing is if you order a tester pot it comes in these huge tins, which was more than enough to do two coats - absolute steal at £3.75 each!

Before you start make sure to tape around the plastic top of the table to protect it from getting paint on - I've used Frog Tape from B&Q, a bit more expensive than masking tape, but definitely worth it as I find poorer quality tape doesn't always work as well.

I also decided I wanted to have a 'dipped' look to the legs, so taped off 10cm from the bottom of the legs of both the table and chairs and painted with Rust-Oleum Metallic Furniture Paint in Gold.

Next up: Painting the plastic top with two coats of Wilko Chalkboard Paint! I've never used chalkboard paint before, but was impressed at how easily it went on. Don't forget to frog tape around the wood this time to protect it from the black paint.

Finally I wanted to add some comfy seat pads to the chairs. With hindsight I perhaps should have done this bit before putting the chairs together, but I was worried about getting paint on the fabric so decided to do it at the end, taking the chairs apart again. This is where I came a bit unstuck! Turns out bulking out the seat with foam means you absolutely cannot get the chairs back together again, so I had to make a last-minute change and ditch the foam. I still wanted to keep the pretty Dalmatian pattern on the seat though, so I simply stapled the fabric (cut into two 50cm x 50cm squares) to the plastic seat part and put it back together. It's a shame there's no foam to make the seats a bit comfier but you could always add a cushion on top if you wanted.

And you're all done! And as you can see it's gone down a storm here already! You good thing about this is I've got loads of chalkboard paint left too, meaning I can always paint over the top again when it gets really messy. 

Shopping list

LATT table & Chairs, IKEA - £20

Blackboard Paint, Wilko - £5

Rust-Oleum Plastic Primer, Homebase - £9.49 (I already had some left over from a previous project)

Rust-Oleum Metallic Furniture Paint, Homebase - £4.99

Tester pots in Farrow & Ball Railings and Sulking Room Pink, colour matched by Decorating Centre Online - £3.75 each

Frog tape, B&Q - £4.50 (I already had some left over from a previous project - it lasts forever!)

Total = £56.48

Let me know if you make your own version - I'd love to have a look so tag me over on Instagram (@dove_cottage). 

Thanks for reading, 

Sam Xx

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