Repurposing An Old Crib

The other day I was looking through the garage and found some of BooBear’s baby things including her old crib. The crib was the kind with the drop-down side that can’t be used with children any more because they aren’t safe. So I’ve been thinking of what I can do to put that old crib to another use.

My Sweetheart has been looking for more cupboard space. She has so many pots and pans that they take up two full cupboards. She uses them all the time so doesn’t want them stored away out of the kitchen so my first idea was to make one of the rail sides into a hanging pot shelf. Here is what I did:

First, I gave the whole rail a good cleaning and sanding, then I stained it a nice dark cherrywood to match up with the cupboards, and gave it a couple of coats of varnish to make it shine. 

After that, I drilled four holes in each corner of the rail and put in an eyebolt with a nut threaded on the opposite side to make sure it can’t pull through. Then I measured the side of the crib and added 4 eyebolts to the ceiling (centering above the kitchen island and making sure I was hitting studs) the same distance apart as the width and length of the crib side.

Last fall, I saved some chain from the top of the fence one of our neighbours demolished. The chain was a bit rusty so I acid-soaked it to get rid of the grime, sandblasted it and painted it black. I hung the new shelf from the chain at just the right height for my sweetheart to be able to reach any of her cooking pots that she needs. I found big S hooks from the local Ikea store that are made of stainless steel and are about 4 3/8” long -  just about perfect. My Sweetheart says that it is so handy and it’s the perfect thing to keep her favourite pots at her fingertips.

I have another plan to make use of the other rail. I want to make a fold-up drying rack in the laundry room to use either to flat-dry sweaters, or to use the bars for drying clothes either by hanging them over the bars or by hanging hangers from the bars.

What I will do is attach one side of the rail to the wall with hinges, and then attach a chain or cord from each side of the opposite end of the rail to the wall, attached to eyebolts. To hold the shelf in an upright position when you wanted it out of the way, I would simply add a cupboard latch to the middle of the rail with the receiver part of it on the wall.

My neighbour says that if he had an old crib he’d make use of the rails in the garden as a trellis for his sweet peas to climb up. I’m sure that there are other great ideas that people have for repurposing all those cribs that can’t be used as cribs any more. If you’ve thought of other ways to turn them into other useful things, feel free to share your ideas. I also still have the ends and the bottom of the crib to reuse. As soon as I decide what to do with those, I’ll let you know!