I was recently looking at Lego tables for the kids, something that would house their in progress builds, plus all their individual pieces they insist on storing for themselves. The Kmart large Lego table was nice, especially since it had the three separate plates, but I thought it was still a little small, and not a nice piece to feature in the centre of a room permanently.
While browsing what others had made plus coffee tables in the second hand market, I some how stumbled on the IKEA LIATORP coffee table which seemed perfect. It has two layers of storage, plus a draw that is divided into quarters, that I roughly calculated at 40cm squared from the product images. I found out that Lego made a 48 stud base plate that was 38cm squared, seemed like a perfect fit. I managed to find a coffee table in decent condition on the second hand market for $80, the Lego plates were $60 for four.
The idea was to not use the glass insert, but create a second wider lip below that for the Lego bases, and this would allow the glass to still be used if a coffee table is ever required. When I measured the clearance the bases had in between, it was roughly 4mm, which was a lot less then initially thought. Though, it still worked out perfectly using some 4mm, 2cm high wood strapping. The bases can be removed to access the Lego or the draw opened completely. I am really surprised nobody else has thought of doing this to the IKEA LIATORP before.
You can find my rough sketch here of dimensions.
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