Little Baby Becca

She opened the guest room door and just stood there a moment staring, then turned, smiled at me and shuffled forward, almost hesitant as if it might attack her. I followed, eager to show off my work… It had been almost 4 months since she half jokingly said “maybe we should get you a crib for our baby games, too bad you are a little too big to sleep in one”. That night I hardly slept as my mind kept coming back to her comment. By the morning I had a plan. Over the next week I scoured the want-ads and Craigslist looking for just the right crib. Lots of phone calls and e-mails, hoping my wife wouldn’t catch on. Two weeks later I finally found what I was looking for, unfortunately it was about a 2 hour drive each way. I had to find a way to account for my 4 hours of missing time that weekend. Then Saturday morning, as if my wife knew, she said she wanted to drive down to her parents. Her dad doesn’t get around well and we go every couple of weeks to help her mom around the house. They let us hire a landscaper for them to keep the yard up, but refuse to let us hire a housekeeper, mom is too proud. Hoping for a “no” answer, I had to ask, “do you want me to come?” To my relief she said she’ll be fine, there is nothing for me to do this trip. As soon as she left I called the seller to say I would be there in about 2 hours. They said I would have to disassemble it myself to get it out so I put my tools in my truck and started my little adventure. I was so excited, I must have been speeding a little because I made it in an hour and forty minutes. My hand was visibly shaking as I rang the bell. A gentleman maybe not much older than myself answered we exchanged greetings and he welcomed me in. His wife joined us and introduced herself as we made our way down a hall. Thankfully we had already agreed on a price because when he opened the door and I saw it in person I couldn’t contain myself and started gushing over it. At that point I was in love with it and would have paid almost anything. I’m sure this nice couple was bewildered as to why I was so excited. I told them it is perfect, exactly what I was looking for. I told a little fib in that it is for our granddaughter when she visits. They don’t have to know it’s actually for me. It only took about 20 minutes to disassemble and load up everything in my truck. I felt guilty about my fib when they handed me a bag with the bumpers that matched the crib as well as the matching mobile. I offered to pay them something for the extras but they refused, they just hoped my granddaughter enjoys her time in the crib as much as there’s had. I told them “whoever” sleeps in this crib will love it, and I wasn’t fibbing this time. On the drive home I was dreaming about climbing into my new crib and wanted to set it up as soon as I got home. Of course I knew that couldn’t happen, I would just have to be patient. I arrived home mid afternoon and unloaded my treasure into the workshop. It is really just the old 2 car detached garage behind the house, I built a new attached garage years ago and eventually turned the old one into my man-cave/ workshop. Not expecting my wife for a few more hours, I laid out all the parts, took some photos and precise measurements then hid everything away. Back in the house to the guest room where I measured the daybed and frame as well. By the time my wife came home I was at my desk working on some sketches for my project. I put my sketches away and headed to the kitchen. I was pleased to hear her parents are doing well and she had a pleasant visit. I don’t like lying to my wife, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, so I told her a client had called and I went to see a new project. I’m a freelance electrical engineer and I often meet clients on weekends. I told her it was a nice size job and during our meeting I had mentioned my workshop and interest in honing my fine carpentry skills. He was willing to give me a shot and let me build a bookcase for him as well as hire my engineering services for a new building project. What I didn’t tell her was I had already gotten the contract for the building on Friday, I just added the bookcase “B.S.” to buy me some workshop time over the coming weeks. Right after dinner I went back to my sketches and by Sunday night had a working plan and materials list. During the week I had to spend time on my real job but found enough time to get started on my “bookcase” project. The crib I found was the older type with the rail that drops down with a foot lever. That is what I had wanted and why it was so hard to find. What I didn’t expect, was the barely used pristine condition little girls crib. I would have settled for the first drop side crib I found, any condition. Because this one was in perfect condition, it made my job that much harder. I didn’t want to ruin the white paint, the pink pinstripes or the bunny graphics on the head and foot boards. The plastic bite guards on the two rails didn’t even have a scratch. The plan was fairly simple, cut 20 something inches off of one side rail and attach it to the other to create one longer rail. Use the rest of the cut rail to add about 5 inches to each side of the head and foot boards. I sized the crib to fit a twin bed mattress which is about 23 inches longer and 10 inches wider than the crib mattress. I bought pieces of square poplar stock to make new corner legs. For the back, which I no longer had the side rail for, I used a piece of 1/4 inch Masonite. I cut a gentle curve at the top, mimicking the original sides. I wrapped the edges with pine using a router to grove the pine, once it was all assembled and glued it was very rigid and complemented the other sides. The next hurdle was creating one long rail from two. After searching for ways to join the two pieces I settled on a hybrid of doweling and my own idea, using threaded rod instead of wood dowels . A trip to Home Depot and I now own a little doweling jig. Using 2 rods each, top and bottom I am fairly confident it will be solid. I used 8 inch pieces of rod, drilling 4 inches into each side with a slightly oversized hole. A little bit of gorilla glue in the holes and a touch of wood glue on the ends of the rails. I did several test holes until I was confident enough that the gorilla glue wood not ooze out and make a mess on the painted rail. Once clamped and squared I left it to dry. The head and foot boards were easy, cutting a piece of rail to make up the difference from the original headboard to the new corner post. Fastening them was a challenge, as I wanted it to look like it was originally built like that. I used a wood dowel and a screw, on the new corner posts I screwed through the post and plugged the hole. Attaching to the original head board is a dowel and a screw on a 45 from the bottom, glued and clamped square. I brought a leftover piece of the rail to the store to match the white paint and had it mixed in a high gloss finish. Using a foam roller and several coats the new back panel and corner posts looked great. I wished I could add pink accent pinstripes, but my artistic talents are nonexistent. It has now been 3 months since I first brought the crib home and all that is really left to do is make a front rail to hold the foot release and then the final assembly. This had to be done with day bed in place. During the week is tough because her work hours fluctuate and she comes home for lunch quite often. Saturday we were supposed to go down to her moms. I didn’t think I could get away from not going to her parents this time , but I woke up with a bad cough and she told me I had best stay home. I didn’t fight her on it and as soon as she left I brought all the pieces into the guest room. The plan is to have the crib stand snugly around the bed without attaching to it. I used bed frame hardware to attach the back panel to the sides, with a slot in the corner posts to accept the metal hooks mounted on the back panel. I want to be able to disassemble it easily and quickly. So far so good, on the front, the slide hardware with the lengthened rail is installed between the new corner posts and I only needed to fill one exposed old screw hole on each of the old corner posts. On the original crib the foot release catch was mounted on the mattress frame, I needed to mount it on the piece of poplar I am using across the lower front. It wasn’t easy and spent the better part of 3 hours trial and error to get it right. Finally, I released the side several times up and down… all is good. I hopped up in the crib for the first time and laid down, I was in heaven! As much as I wanted to stay and nap a while, I still had some final touches to do. It only took me 5 minutes to disable and move the pieces back to the workshop. I needed to fill the screw holes and touch up the paint where I removed the hardware from the original crib. The last thing to do was reinstall the plastic bite guard on the rail. After cutting and test fitting the two pieces I wrapped a piece of Saran Wrap where the joint will be and used super glue to join the pieces without sticking to the wood. By this time I needed to put everything away before my wife came home. I wasn’t ready for her to see it yet… The next few days seemed to drag on. I desperately wanted her to see it finished, but i needed to wait for the right time. One night I even went out to the workshop, uncovered the head board and rail just to stare at it for a while. In the back of mind I was probably hoping my wife would come out and see it. Finally, 3 months and 3 weeks to the day I first brought home the crib it was time for the big reveal. My wife was meeting some friends for lunch and a little shopping. I told her have fun, I would fix us a nice little dinner later. That was to be sure she comes home and doesn’t go somewhere else after. Once she had left I stripped all the bedding from the daybed and put on a pink fitted sheet I bought at the Goodwill store for $1. Although I knew I had all afternoon, I was so excited I had the crib assembled in no time. It looked incredible, if you didn’t have anything to compare it to you probably wouldn’t notice it was bigger than normal. I took the bumper set and threw it in the dryer for a few minutes to freshen it up. Unfortunately, it wasn’t big enough to go all the way around the crib, but I was able to balance it out so it looked okay. The last piece was the mobile, the little bunnies matched the ones on the bumpers as well as the head and foot boards. I clamped that on in the middle of the back side, hung the little bunnies and wound it up… I had chills I was so excited I wasn’t sure if I could wait any longer, but I thought if I made it this far… so I went into the kitchen and started dinner like I promised. I was at the stove frying chicken cutlets when she pulled into the driveway. I quickly snuck into the guest room to wind the mobile then hurried back to the stove. The music from the mobile was just barely audible from the kitchen and she didn’t notice it at first. Then she asked me if I left the tv on inside? I said no and played dumb as I followed her to the source of the music. She opened the guest room door…

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