Red Red....Crib
I can not believe I am officially 7 months pregnant. SEVEN MONTHS! In all seriousness this pregnancy has been pretty dang easy. I really have no complaints other than the fact that it's going by really fast and I pretty much feel behind 24/7. But you know one thing we are on top of?
The Crib.
Back in August I mentioned we were tossing around the idea of using the crib Brent and his brothers used when they were babies which also happens to be the crib their mom, Cindy, used when she was a baby. Bottom line...the crib is no spring chicken. Old is great in interiors, in fact sometimes I prefer it, however when it comes to babies, old can actually be dangerous. There are several features prevalent in older cribs that have been known to hurt babies, the two main concerns are:
- The distance between crib slats and spindles should not be too wide. The minimum size is 2 3/8" wide. Anything larger than this poses the risk of the baby slipping through completely or the torso slipping through which would trap the babies head.
- The drop-side. The ability to drop the crib is convenient but over time the hardware can give way and a gap can form between the mattress and the drop side creating a dangerous area where babies can become trapped and suffocate.
So, we set out to DIY some fixes to these concerns and give this crib a fun new life for our little mini.
Here is a shot of the crib before
To solve the issue of the spindles being spaced too far apart we purchased wooden dowels at Home Depot to place in between each spindle. Not only would this bridge the gap, but I was excited for the aesthetic interest it would add to the crib.
Brent cut each dowel to the correct height and then drilled holes and slipped the dowels into place.
With the new dowels installed we drug all four sides of the crib to the back yard to paint.
As for the color we talked about several options but I had one color on the brain...RED. I know, it's a little random for a baby room, but I love the color red, it's happy and bright and just seemed like the perfect choice for this room. Especially considering it could work for a boy or a girl. Our red of choice? Stiletto Love by Behr.
To tackle this paint job we enlisted our favorite tool - the paint gun!
It is amazing how much quicker the whole painting process goes with this gun. In a matter of minutes one whole panel was evenly sprayed. Brent sprayed one coat, let it dry an then flipped the pieces over to spray the other side.
Once each side had dried Brent created a little homemade rig to hold the pieces vertically so he could easily get all of the sides, nooks and crevices.
Meanwhile I was busy tending to the metal pieces. The crib came with a metal vertical rail for the drop part of the crib to slide up and down. While we planned to nix the ability to actually move the sides up and down we wanted to keep the metal rail for the cool factor. So I sprayed the metal rails, all hardware and the metal spring that the mattress will sit on in this bright silver paint.
We hung fishing line between the deck and a tree for the metal pieces to hang on for easy access and full coverage as I sprayed them. In our experience this is the best approach for spray paint - less runs, even coverage and faster drying.
Once everything was painted we left the crib and it's parts outside to bake in the sun for a few hours to get nice and dry. Later that night we brought everything back inside and Brent began assembling.
To solve the issue of the drop sides we drilled the side walls of the crib into the head and foot boards to ensure the sides would not move.
And finally.....
Here's a close up shot of the metal detailing along with the added dowels.
Pretty dramatic transformation, eh? We love how the crib turned out and can't wait to add the bedding and other finishing touches. Speaking of finishing touches, we had our first baby shower Saturday! It was so much fun and we got so many cute, adorable, useful, awesome, practical and fun things! It kills me how the cuteness factor of basic things like say, a sock, is literally amplified by about 200% when seen in miniature form. CUTENESS OVERLOAD OVER HERE and there isn't even a baby roaming around yet.