Materials: BJURSTA dining room table
Description: We have a very small home and twin babies. Our small dining room/living room will not comfortably accommodate 2 high chairs and a dining room table. I heard about activity tables for daycare centers. They sell for $300+, which is not in our high chair budget. Other non-high chair options didn't make feeding the babies at the same time sound easy. We wanted something similar to an activity table that would accommodate the babies now and the whole family at mealtime when the twins get older as well as serve as a place to make crafts or paint.
I decided to make a modified activity table for a fraction of the price. I found replacement seats for the activity table online (pkg of 6 chairs for $16.99 and pkg of 2 belts for $2.99 on elitedeals.com) and we had a free Ikea table a friend gave us.
We traced the outline of the seats on the table and cut out holes using a jigsaw. We moved around the supports to make it stable since this is an expandable table (we lost the inner leaf so don't plan to expand it ever). The seats can be easily taken out and turned the opposite direction to make it easy for feeding infants, toddlers to eat dinner, or as an activity table for crafts.
When we want to have adult friends over we remove the seats and place a board over the holes. We figure we can invest in a new table when the babies are bigger and can sit in regular seats. The table/chairs are good for kids up to 24+ months. Please visit our blog to see more pictures and a video demo of feeding 2 infants at once using this ingenious table!
See more of the twin high chair.
~Krystal
Very clever and practical. And I love that it doesn't take up much space in a small kitchen with two highchairs.
ReplyDeleteI applaud your creativity! brilliant!
ReplyDeleteAwesome...
ReplyDeletewhat a handy husband ;-)
This is awesome! If we were still in our first place with our two, I'd have done this!
ReplyDeleteWhat else can be said? Very clever and creative. Seems like it's a perfect solution and as they start eating more of their own food can be turned to face the middle sort of like all 4 of you at the table at once. It seems like you could very easily make an entire table top to cover the whole thing later when you don't need it. Great idea!!
ReplyDeleteProlly the best Ikea hack i've ever seen ever. ☺
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome. I'm just wondering if they compensated for the extra weight of the kids. It looks like the table could easy become unbalanced topple over, especially once the kids grow bigger.
ReplyDeleteTriplets even!
ReplyDeleteawesome!!
ReplyDeleteThat is so awesome!!! Those daycare tables really are very handy but yes that stuff is crazy expensive. This is such a great idea and you guys did an awesome job!
ReplyDeleteI love this! So jealous. Wish we had something like that for our twins. I love a good repurpose as well. Bravo
ReplyDeletewow! that highchair is made perfectly and safe for the kids. two thumbs up!!!!
ReplyDeleteingenious
ReplyDeletevery clever..best hack i've seen.
ReplyDeleteTotally brilliant!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is genius!!
ReplyDeletethats such a great idea. i know this, because having triplet nieces, i know the value of having them all in one spt and not having 3 high chairs. since you bought 6 seats, and have 4 left over you should really make 2 more tables! you could sell them for like 100-300 depending on the shape of the table. very cool and well done!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant idea!!!
ReplyDeleteAre there any step-by-step instructions on how to do this?
Wow, how creative! Excellent use of what you have, and making it even better than an expensive, store-bought table would have been. I also like to customize and improvise, but I never would have thought of this. (But then, I don't have kids, let alone twins!) Thanks for putting this up for everyone to appreciate and copy-cat, if needed.
ReplyDeleteLet me know when you're selling these!
ReplyDeleteHi! We are about to have twins and I was wondering how to build the same awesome table you had! Could you please tell us the brand of the chairs, because those I found were much more expensive (85$ on elitedeals), and it would have to be shipped to France, so I will maybe have to find the same directly in France.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for sharing your hack!
Hi! We are about to have twins and I was wondering how to build the same awesome table you had! Could you please tell us the brand of the chairs, because those I found were much more expensive (85$ on elitedeals), and it would have to be shipped to France, so I will maybe have to find the same directly in France.
ReplyDeleteThank you for you hack!
Marion,
ReplyDeleteyou could probably use the ikea antilop chair for this as well, just make sure you secure it properly to the table.
Thats so cool & very cute.
ReplyDeleteOMG! How can someone be so creative? I wish I had twins to do the same. Well done!
ReplyDeleteI love this! Twin parents finding practical and creative solutions to having twins. http://twinstips.com
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing! Is it too early to nominate this idea for "Hack of the Year 2011"?
ReplyDeleteTracy, it was nominated for Hack of the Year 2010! :)
ReplyDeleteThat's a really nice chair. It'll be great for my twins. I should definitely make one of those. Thanks for the idea.
ReplyDeleteoffice furniture
Sooo great!!!
ReplyDeleteShould have seen this 4 years earlier!
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome! If we were still in our first place with our two, I'd have done this!
ReplyDeleteSimple and amazing.
ReplyDeleteHave 6 month old twins. Building this as soon as the seats get here. THANK YOU!
ReplyDelete