Train and Cars Board

Our 3 year old son loves to play with his cars and trains. He is OBSESSED. He is always toting one around in his hand throughout the house, stores and restaurants. So, I’m sure it is no surprise that he is infatuated with the train tables at Barnes and Noble and at various toy stores.

Unfortunately, we just don’t have room for another large piece of furniture in our home, without getting rid of something else. So a train table is out of the question. However, I did find some unused real estate under the little guy’s toddler bed (aka, crib minus the front side,) which meant if we measured everything correctly, we could make a train and cars board that could neatly slide underneath the bed and out of the way. Yay for extra storage!

Making the board was super easy and can be completely customized to your own tastes. We knew we needed something big enough to encompass the wooden train and space for roads too. We started with some thin hardboard, a few Behr test paint pots, and chalkboard paint for the roads. (Colors clockwise from top are Green Energy, Intoxication, and Placid Sea.)

After a light sanding, I used a foam roller to paint the grass color on the board.

Next, we set up the train tracks, using a couple of train sets from Ikea. Once the configuration was how we wanted it, I used a pencil to draw in some roads and water. You may be able to see that there were a few oopsies with my drawing, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed with a little extra paint.

Then, I used a small paint brush to fill in the water, roads and several bushes/tree areas.

Here is how it looked after it was all painted.

After that, it was time to attach the tracks with some wood glue. I looked at one of the photos I had previously taken of the setup and used that as a guideline to piece everything together. Then just pulled up each piece individually to glue them to the board.

This train and cars board is so fun!

And it fits perfectly under the bed, which saves us a ton of space.

This little guy could not be happier and we love that he now has a fun place to play with his vehicles!