We're so pleased that folks are playing nursery show and tell! Since yesterday's shout out, we've received a number of great nursery submissions from AT reader-parents who are full of resourceful ideas. We'll be posting them through next week (the last week of Kids' Design Month), starting with this great DIY room from S. Carter...
S. Carter says: We love modern furniture, but couldn't come to terms with a $1000 crib. We improvised a bit, with some good results. [more after the jump]
The crib is from IKEA, stained red and coated with a water-based polyacrylic. Total cost: about $100. The bookcase is custom made of brich plywood, with standard sized mail bins from a mail supply company called charnstrom.com) and casters from Grizzly Hardware (through Amazon.com). Total material cost about $250. Prices are exclusive of my labor. Definitely a project I could only have undertaken for a first child.
S. Carter
Pasadena, CA
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
Thanks for the mail bin resource/idea. I have been looking for bins and really didn't want to go the wicker basket route.
Those bins look great. We, too, hate the wicker basket look. VERY inventive.
BTW: Is your child able to easily pull them in and out or do they need a grown-up to help ensure the bins don't spill or fall on the kid's toes?
Also: Are the bins see through or opaque? If the latter, has the kid figured out what goes in each one for themselves? A friend put polaroid snapshots on hers to remind her child... We're strugglng to create a toy storage system that encourages self-service -- and clean up! Can you tell?
Thanks, Mamma C.
The bins slide in quite easily. Our daughter is now 9 months old, and she can pull up easily on the shelves, and can pull out the bins, though not with much control. The bins are opaque. Since she is only 9 months, we haven't tested her ability to use the bins in any coherent way. She does know they have toys and that they are fun to pull out -- that's about it.
The picture is from before she was born, and things are admittedly a bit more cluttered now. The low shelves also have proved to be tempting so the books often are pulled off and put away as an activity.
Finally, to clarify, I performed all of the finishing of the crib (lots of labor - two coats of stain and two of the acrylic) and shelves, but had the shelves built by a carpenter at my work according to my design.
So the bins *don't* fall out when she pulls on them?
Cool.
Very clever and very nice looking, too.
The crib looks awesome. Love the color. I'm always too chicken to take on that kind of DIY project, first, because I am awful at it and second because I am overly paranoid that I would accidentally choose some horribly toxic stuff that my kid would then gnaw on and consume. Something I need to get over ;-)
S.,
Great job! I am new to carpentery, just started doing trims, baseboard etc.
The bookcase is exactly what I would like to do for my daughter's room. Right now, we are using ugly shelving units (black metal cube) you get from places like Target.
Do you plans on how to build thethe bookcase?
Bruce
I love the red IKEA crib. If I had an IKEA near me, I certainly would have gone for that beautiful modern style. I also really like that you didn't go with the traditional baby colors. This child has something to look forward to. Thanks for sharing.
I love the shelves and bins, and have been looking for something exactly like that for my son's room, so my heart sank when I read that you had it custom built. If only I worked with a carpenter too!