Our DIY Bekvam Learning Tower Using Ikea Stool Base

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When my daughter was 6 months old, I started seeing pictures of DIY Bekvam IKEA learning towers pop up all over Pinterest. I honestly thought the idea was a little silly at first, so I never gave it much thought.  My daughter liked to be held while I cooked or cleaned.  When I needed to do something that couldn’t involve her, I would place her in the Pack n Play with toys or books.

At a certain point, though, she became a crawling and then walking mess who wanted to be a part of everything!  When it became impossible to keep her still while holding her, and when the Pack n Play ceased to amuse her for more than 30 seconds, it came time to think of another idea to allow me to cook and clean.

Thus, came this IKEA learning tower proejct!  (Also, apparently the kitchen helper stool is another name for it!)  Purchasing an actual learning tower through Amazon is a pricey endeavor, so we decided to make one for ourselves.  Especially since the IKEA Bekvam stool is so inexpensive and perfect for this project.

My sweet husband loosely followed this tutorial here to make our own IKEA learning tower.

We looked through what seemed like hundreds of DIY learning tower tutorials but ultimately decided on this one.  The full back support made it to where our daughter couldn’t fall out unintentionally.  We did add extra  side supports; our daughter is super skinny and could stick herself between the sides and bend over.  We placed the latch at a little different height that worked better for us.  We also put some grips on the bottom of the tower to keep it from moving along our hardwood floor.

It looks a little top heavy, but it is very stable.  We’ve tried experimenting with pushing it over, and I don’t think there’s any way our daughter could cause it to fall over unintentionally or intentionally for that matter.  We also never leave her unsupervised in the stool.  Don’t want her to climb on the cabinets or work on crawling out of the tower by herself.  We are also very careful to make sure she is always latched in.

It still needs a coat of paint, but honestly, I’m not sure I will ever get around to it…so many other things to do!

We’ve found a lot of ways to entertain her thus far in our IKEA learning stool when we do not immediately need her “help” in the kitchen.

Here are some pictures of our finished DIY learning tower:

This is a top-view of sorts of the tower. You can see the two handles on the side.  It is very stable on top of the Bekvam stool base.

Here is the side showing the extra bars along the width.  There’s no way she can fall through the side of her tower!

This part of the tower is open, but it’s always pushed against the kitchen cabinet.

The other side of the learning tower looks very similar, just with hinges.

Also, while at IKEA, we grabbed the MALA easel for baby girl to do art on.  Check out the easel redo!  I think it turned out really well!

If you can’t tell, we absolutely love IKEA.  Here are some of our more recent IKEA hacks: IKEA Flyt washi tape magazine holder redo, IKEA Knagglig wooden crate box repurpose, and IKEA Kid’s Art Display using Forsynt.

DIY Learning Tower with IKEA Bekvam