Greene & Greene Style Crib

Viewer Project - By Jeff Ver (AKA OaklandCraftsman) from Oakland
Added on January 7, 2013

I made this crib about 2 years ago for my daughter to be at the time. A labor of love to say the least. (I know Marc can empathize with me here) The whole thing took about a month, but would take MUCH longer now as I used to have nothing but free time (again…Marc).

I spent most of my time designing the crib, there are all kinds of safety regulations that I wanted to stick close to for obvious reasons. I ordered a mattress frame online and decided to make the crib so that it will convert into a toddler bed and full size bed one day. I used bed frame hardware from Rockler on both sides (top and bottom) and also on what will be the foot board.

I used Sapele as my main species and all the construction is mortise and tenon. MAN, that was A LOT of M+Ts!!! I am a HUGE G & G fan and incorporate some aspect of their design in almost all my work. I used a variation of the cloud lift on all sides, which made the slats many sizes. A lot of hand sanding and fitting on this one.

Ebony plugs throughout. I designed a “tree like structure” on the foot board to add some visual interest, which has some exposed ebony dowels holding it in place. This was kind of a happy accident.

In what will be the headboard, I inlayed a tile from Motawi Tileworks, who do absolutely excellent work. I surrounded the tile with a half lapped cocobolo frame to give the appearance of…well, a frame. Glue up I remember having a challenging time keeping all of the slats square as I was clamping and ended up making what I’m sure now was a way too elaborate jig to solve the problem.

Everything was sanded to 220 grit and then a washcoat of shellac with trans tint brown mahogany for color matching was applied. I followed with 5 coats of amber shellac and 2 coats of wax to keep the whole thing non-toxic.

The crib came out beautiful and is admired by all that see it. The only thing more beautiful is what we ended up putting in it!

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