As my daughter grew big enough to require a bed, the question came up of what to do with her old crib. Erin couldn’t stand the thought of getting rid of it, and I disliked the idea of having to store a large object that wouldn’t be used for the foreseeable future.

I came up with what I thought was an elegant compromise and made frames with the wood from the crib.

Some of the slats, I ripped in half lengthwise. When glued to full-width slats, that would give the effect of having a rabbet cut. I did this because it was important to me to leave the finish on most of the boards so that it would still be immediately recognizable as her old crib. (When gluing finished surfaces together, it’s important to scrape off any finish of the surfaces that will have glue in order to ensure proper adhesion.)

While most of the frames were done in this fashion, I discovered an interesting pattern while cutting the crib up. Where the slats entered the top and bottom, the cut-off portion of the slats stayed in the rails, giving the effect of a periodic rounded slat shape. I cut up one frame from these, doubling up the rails. I even cut the frame up in such a way that I could reuse the knock-down bolts from the crib to assemble the frame.