Easy Classroom Table Transformation

Flexible Seating Options

A classroom table transformation is easy with these simple and inexpensive makeover ideas! I was thrilled with how this old dingy brown table turned out with just a little bit of love. Today I’m sharing the how-to!

Donor’s Choose to the Rescue!

This summer I attended Kindergarten Smorgasbord’s Elevate conference. He finally convinced me to give full-on flexible seating a try. When I was laying in bed that night, I couldn’t sleep and decided to post a project on Donor’s Choose. I was thrilled when our Donor’s Choose project was funded within just a matter of days!

Have you ever used this incredible website? It costs the teacher nothing but can be SO BENEFICIAL for your classroom! In fact, that big classroom rug you also see in the picture was fully funded by donor’s using Donor’s Choose. If you click on one of the links above, we BOTH get $25 towards a project of our choice!

I was absolutely thrilled with these chairs that I picked out from Lakeshore Learning. (This is all done THROUGH Donor’s Choose when you fill out your project.) They can sit straight up, lean back, lay flat, AND they have a zip-off washable cover! My kids love them and even I LOVE to sit in them! If you don’t want to use Donor’s Choose, these ones from Amazon look very similar.

I was also really happy with the little rainbow pillows. The kids ALWAYS grab them to sit on, lay on, and even place them on top of other chairs with a hard surface to make them a little more comfy. They are so colorful and wipeable which makes them easy to clean!

I will be sharing a classroom reveal soon and can’t wait to share how these “rainbow” pillows brighten up one of our couches!

Flexible Seating Options from a Donor's Choose Grant

I could go on and on about these lovely seating options, the generous donor who purchased them for us, and how much we love them. I really encourage you to give Donor’s Choose a try!

On a side note, my students recently finished their thank you notes for the chairs. I knew I needed something simple at the beginning of the year for them to fill out. My “Thank You Resource” worked perfectly. I filled in a letter and each student was asked to write the words “soft seats” on the line. They also wrote their names and drew a picture of the new chairs in our classroom. The resource is packed with differentiated writing pages and a variety of options. I love how they turned out and my students appreciate their new comfy pillows and chairs even more!

Easy Classroom Table Transformation – The Before

Curious what the table looked like before?

Before the Easy Classroom Table Transformation

We’ve ALL had these in our room at some point. That drab brown just really bugs me. I’m pretty sure this table was here when I was a student at Westwood!

Another teacher had already removed the legs and pushed them into tennis balls so that part was ready. I just knew that this table would be the perfect height to use with my new flex chairs but I HATED the top of it!

Contact Paper

I decided to purchase this contact paper from Amazon. (This is an affiliate link. If you purchase using this link, I will earn a SMALL commission from your purchase at NO additional cost to you!)

I could tell right away that I was going to LOVE the result! How much better does it look already???

What Else You Need!

Contact Paper? CHECK
Dingy Ugly Table? CHECK
Scissors? CHECK
Pencil? CHECK
Super Cute Assistant? CHECK!!!

Seriously though, this process is MUCH easier if you have some help. My 5 year old daughter was a huge help to me. For an extra long strip you may want to get an adult. My husband helped with the larger pieces and it kept me sane.

The How-To

Here’s the good news… It’s super simple to do!

Lay your contact paper across the middle of the table or along the edge of one side. Cut a few extra inches in case you misjudged a little bit.

Now, flip the contact paper over and just a pencil to draw an outline of the table like this:

You can see that I started on the side of the table. I promise that wherever you choose to start will work just fine.

You can then cut along the pencil marks and flip it back over. When you have it all lined up the way you want, you are ready to slowly start peeling off the back liner while another person helps to smooth it out.

Yes, you may get some bubbles but it’s no big deal. Try not to pull it up to try and fix it too many times. If you do, it may get worse!

The easiest way is to have someone smoothing as you remove the paper or vice versa.

Aniston really enjoyed helping me with this. She wanted it to be our little secret so the other students didn’t know that this beautiful white table used to be an ugly brown color!

Table Transformation Uses

To be honest, this might not be something you want to do if your kids are constantly doing artwork on it or having water bottles or other drinks around it.

That’s why I decided this would be a perfect computer and iPad table! I asked our tech guys to remove 2 computers from our room. We go to the computer lab for 20 minutes daily and we just honestly don’t use them that much.

I loved the way it looked with our little fake flowers!

A few days later, I placed our iPads on this storage rack that I grabbed from Amazon. I was really pleased with how it turned out. I love using this for our “Tech Table” because the contact paper looks good as new after a couple of months into the school year.

The contact paper is such an inexpensive update that it’s no big deal if you did end up having to replace a little or at the end of the year.