Building a Fun Lego Tray

When hubby and I discovered that our sweet grandson had Legos on his Santa wish list for Christmas, we decided to make this tray to keep the pieces contained and make it easier for him to relocate and store his creations between building sessions.

The construction design is super simple - basically a plywood base surrounded by wood trim.

 
Materials:
Lego Gray Baseplates - 6 pieces
1/2" plywood cut to 17" x 22"
1" x 1" boards - 2 pieces cut to 17" long
1" x 1" boards - 2 pieces cut to 22" long
1" x 1/4" wood strips - 2 pieces 18-1/2" long
1" x 1/4" wood strips - 2 pieces 16-1/2" long
1-1/2" diameter self-adhesive felt pads
Construction adhesive (we used Gorilla Glue All Surface)
Wood glue
Furniture clamps
Brad nailer and 1/2" brads
Paint or stain
Fine sandpaper

 

NOTE:  Carefully sand all wood pieces to remove any splinter hazards.

To begin, we connected the 6 baseplates together using Legos.  

Apply construction adhesive liberally and evenly to the plywood.  

Leaving the Legos in place as spacers, we placed the connected baseplates centered evenly on the adhesive covered plywood and pressed all baseplates firmly to ensure adhesion to the plywood.  Reposition quickly as needed so that you have the same amount of exposed plywood on each side.

Let dry overnight.


After gluing the baseplates to the plywood, I found I didn't like being able to see the plywood between the baseplate seams.

 

Soooo using a super thin artist's brush I used dark grey paint to paint the seams and the top edges of the plywood.  If you're less obsessive (and likely, you ARE!), you don't need to paint at all.  :) 

Hubby did a little fancy carpentry at this point and made gorgeous lap corners in the trim pieces that served to hide the sides of the plywood.  But, you can use straight cuts and connect straight ends for an easier option. 

 
The top trim pieces were attached to the outer edges of the top of the tray with wood glue and brad nails and we used clamps to hold them in place while allowing the wood glue to dry overnight.

With the top of the tray assembled, we then worked on the underside by attaching thin wood strips with brad nails and wood glue.  We used scrap strips, but if buying them,  1" x 1/4" trim boards work well.  The strips covered any rough edges or gaps, to prevent splinters in little fingers.  

At this point you can get creative with paint or wood stain.  

We chose to paint the underside with dark espresso latex paint and for a rustic farmhouse look, left the top trim natural and applied clear polyurethane.  

After applying two coats of polyurethane to the top trim boards, letting it dry, and attaching the felt pads to the underside of each corner, the tray was complete and ready to gift wrap for Christmas!

We're hoping our sweet little guy enjoys this Lego tray!  Do you have a little one (or not so little one) on your gift list that is crazy about Lego?  It's not too late to make one of these trays just in time for Christmas!

UPDATE:  We celebrated Christmas with the little ones this past weekend and the Lego tray was a big hit!

Your comments are greatly appreciated and I look forward to your thoughts and ideas!  I try to respond to comments via email as soon as I can. If your email address isn't available, I will comment here. Thanks so much for visiting!

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