Ashton's Crib

Comment

Comment by Southern Belle on May 26, 2010 at 4:37pm

Thank you SO much for all the info!!! I hope I can convince my husband to build this. You truly did an amazing job. The crib is beautiful!!

Comment by Mike Upah on May 26, 2010 at 2:28pm

Southern Belle,
It doesn't look like we are going to get formal plans anytime soon, if ever, but I wanted to provide you some guidlines. A crib of course requires a mattress spring. I found one locally in Des Moines Iowa at the Woodsmith Store, and it came with a set of plans. If you can't find something local you can order it from the Woodsmith store at http://www.woodsmithstore.com/heirloomcrib.html. Those plans gave me the dimensions for the panels. But the plan is for a lighter weight, tall crib with the sliding front panel - I didn't want that so I came up with my own design. Once you have the panel dimensions for length, the rest is just a matter of style as there are no critical dimensions. The posts can be as thick as you like. The layered trim can be as thick and long as you like. Etc. The tricky part is the knock down fasteners. You can see one of these in the top of left post. That metal bolt goes into a metal receiver that is embedded in the thin edge of the front panel. The alignment of these has to be almost perfect - especially if you use three per side. And since you don't put them in until the parts are complete it is nerve wracking. I clamped the panels together and drilled tiny pilot holes to try to mark the position on the edge of the panel - and then measured to see if those were correct, and I still have to "work it" when assembling the four pieces.

With no trim, the side panels are the same height as the front panel, and I believe I settled on 11" higher for the back panel.

The front panel has no posts. The side panels have a post on the front but no post on the back. The back panel has posts on both sides. The posts at the front of the side panels stand on the trim that is attached to the bottom of the front panel. A knock-down fastener comes up through the bottom of the foot into a receiver embedded in the underside of the post. One issue that is a little odd is that the front panel is not mounted on the center of the post but instead is mounted at the back edge. Same for how the side panel is permanently mounted to the post with pocket screws. If the panels were centered on the post the the back inside edge of the post would interfere with the mattress spring and more importantly the baby could hit its head on the corner edge of the post. This could be alleviated by removing a quarter of the post (the inside back quarter), but I decided not to do that as it would change the panel dimension. The Woodsmith plans have a useful method for installing the slats (they are not mortised), but one caution is that my back panel is about 11" taller than the front. That longer distance lets the slats flex more - which is a concern obviously. So the front and side slats are about 3/8s and the back are more like 5/8s.

The side panels are assembled to the back with three knock down fasteners coming through the back of the post. So all in all there are 14 knock down fasteners. The woodsmith store plans call for a plastic teething strip on the front and back panels. I just put a piece of wider trim on top of the front panel, and of course even a toddler shouldn't be able to reach the top of the back panel. Must be somewhere in the neighborhood of about 20 to 25 pocket holes per panel so you'll need a few plugs. For the trim... I generally choose about a 1/2 overhang (both longer that the piece it is mounted to, and a 1/2" wider as well. For the back panel, there are two pieces of trim at both the top and the bottom and those are centered. On the sides there is no trim at the bottom and on top the trim is flush with the panel so the baby can't hit his head on a sharp corner of the trim. The trim at the bottom of the front panel mirrors the trim on the back panel. On the top of the front panel I used a single piece of trim. The feet are the same width as the post, and can be as tall as you like. They are screwed into the bottom trim piece. I believe I chose 2.5" square for the po

Comment by Mike Upah on May 17, 2010 at 9:32am

I don't mind sharing but I don't have a plan. Just kind of made it up as I went along based loosely on a previous crib I had made for my kids, and also a picture that my niece found of a style she liked. What is your time line for completion? One of the people at Kreg Tool had some interest as well, and so there may be some coordination to be had.

Comment by Southern Belle on May 12, 2010 at 12:46pm

Would you possibly mind sharing the plans for this crib or where you got the plans? This is absolutely stunning! I want to get my new daughter a white crib but with all the crib recalls lately, I'd love to build one myself.

Gorgeous job!!!