Materials: NORDEN Gateleg table; EKBY TRYGGVE, Shelf (3x); FABLER, Box (set of 3); BEHANDLA, Wood treatment oil
Description: My wife and I have been looking for a diaper-changing table that could be easily converted – back and forth – from/ into a functional furniture for quite a while.
In particular we didn’t want to buy an expensive, specialized changing table: the products available, even the ones offering “converted from/ to chest”, e.g. IKEA’s LEKSVIK Cabinet or HEMNES Chest, didn’t fit our expectations as we’d end up with yet another piece of furniture. In addition, most of the changing tables wouldn’t fit style-wise either ;-).
In the end I decided to hack our existing NORDEN Gateleg table.
Actually, I ended up with an assembly hack: using EKBY TRYGGVE Shelfs and BEHANDLA (Wood treatment oil) seemed to be a “natural fit”. … only to later stumble upon the FABLER, Box – in order to complete the hack.
Here’s what I did:
1. removed one table plate, which should become the upper changing table plate
2. removed one of the laths at bottom side of the removed table plate (otherwise the FABLER boxes would not fit underneath later)
3. sawed shelves: two of which fitting to the length of the table plate, one fitting to its width (but: each, plus two times the thickness of the shelf)
4. sawed one shelf – the one that will be sitting in the middle of the table – lengthwise, to adjust for the thickness of the table plate (the other shelf will overlap the plate)
5. sawed the laths: 4x the length of the plate, 2x the width of the plate (each, minus two times the thicknes of the shelf), 1x the width of the table plate (which will be used to stabilize the assembly)
6. screwed together the laths and shelfs – the bottom laths will sit on the bottom table plate, the upper laths will support the upper table plate
7. painted the custom wood parts with oil to protect it’s surface
8. assembled the chainging table: one shelf with laths left and right, one back side; one laths to stabilize; angle irons in the laths corners; angle irons to fix the upper table plate to the laths
A picture is worth a thousand words, that said please have a look at the pictures.
One more detail: in order to assure that the top part changing table can not slide (e.g. in case the table is not always placed in the corner of the room or moved) I added a custom “slide stop” that will fit into the gap of the bottom table plate and it’s fixed middle plate.
~ Matthias, Donauwoerth (Germany)