Ikea Lack Table turned Light Table(DIY)

I found this awesome instructable on how to build a light table from an Ikea Lack Table.  I made it my goal to make one once we moved and were near an Ikea again!

Well, the lady we bought our house from left several things in the house, one of which was an Ikea Lack Table (not certain that it’s Ikea, but it’s the same style as a Lack Table). Lucky me!

The instructions were simple, however, the items they called for were a bit pricey after you added them all together. Even though it came to less than a ‘real’ light table, I couldn’t see spending all that money!

So, I decided to figure out a way to make one that was similar, but cost less!

Here is how we did it!  (with a little trial and error involved) 

1.  Take the lack table and draw a straight line around the table top 1” in from the edge. (Though honestly in retrospect I wish we had gone 3cm like in the instructable, b/c there was some extra supports we needed to remove and you will see there are some shadows in the box b/c of some other supports that were not removable).

2.  Use a straight blade to cut around the line and remove the top.  This part was NOT as easy as it looked, as a matter of fact my husband did this and was quite frustrated!  I don’t know if you have a true lack it would be easier or not. 

3.  Hollow out the inside, drill a hole in the bottom for the cord.

4.  Line the bottom with aluminum foil 

5.  Secure the lights (the rope lights I bought came with screw clips to secure the lights to the bottom of the table).  I used 2 strands of rope lights. (these pictures only show one strand of lights, I added a second later).

6.  We bought a piece of Plexiglas from Home Depot, one big enough to cover the hole and some plastic cutters to cut it down to size.  Originally we planned to fit it exactly to the whole size, but after my husband messed up one piece trying to cut it ($15 gone!), we decided to just cut one side and fit it completely OVER the hole.  Our piece is about 21 x 21” (the table is 21.5 x21.5). 

7.  Cover the underside of the Plexiglas with white contact paper (the trick was finding contact paper wide enough, which I did find on amazon).

8.  Pre drill the holes in the Plexiglas so you don’t crack it when securing it.

9.  Secure with screws. There was some space between the supports in the table and the top of the table (where we were going to rest the Plexiglas in plan A), we had to add a spacer to make the surface even before screwing the top on. 

This is what we were using previously – which was also a trial and error process. 

I have acquired lots of cool transparent toys to go along with the table.  I’ll make a post about those in the near future!

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