The dry erase table

Our family loves to doodle. The kids go through dozens of sheets of paper each day filled with drawings and doodles and cartoon characters. When their friends come over, they often all sit around drawing together.

So, this weekend, we have been working on converting our basement into a bedroom for the two boys. We have been sorting through tons of stuff to clear out an area that my husband used as an office, as well as lots of storage bins full of photo albums and toys and papers.

One of the items in the basement is our old train table that the boys used to play with back in the day they were obsessed with Thomas and all things train. For the past few years, they have been using the table as a place to build their Lego projects.

I decided to move it upstairs and convert it into a dry erase craft table. I was envisioning a place where they could sit around and draw with dry erase markers, color on paper or play games.

I started by covering the table with white contact paper. I was convinced that dry erase markers would wipe off clean. BUT I was wrong. So, I covered the contact paper with laminating sheets. (By the way, if I did this again, I would probably go shopping for some rolls of laminate so I didn't end up with so many seams. I also saw dry erase paint at Home Depot, but it got really bad reviews, so I decided to try something else.)

I then found dry erase decorative circles that I adhered to the top. As you can see from the photos, the kids couldn't even wait for me to put the top on the table before they started doodling!

My son and I both tried to draw Animal from the Muppet show. This is my attempt.

The drawers are now stocked with stacks of white paper and construction paper. I also found an awesome set of broad tipped dry erase markers that came in some really cool colors.

I'm not sure how long the dry erase table will stay in the middle of our family room. But we are having fun with it for now!