Baby Furniture

I'm looking for ideas for all types of baby furniture, from high chairs to cribs and everything in between. I'm going to be designing a few sets to be sold, so I wont be making any exact copies of anything you guys show me, but I need a little inspiration so let me see what you got.

talk to your liability lawyer before putting anything targeted for "infants" on the market

Thanks for the advice Tod, but I live in Mexico, I don't think those things even exist here, and as far as general legalities go, I have all the necessary documentation to sell any kind of furniture I want, including but not limited to baby furniture.

What I don't have yet, because I haven't needed it yet, is the right to sell my products under a brand name or own a furniture store, but I will be getting that as soon as I can afford to take the plunge and open up my first store.

I can, however, sell furniture in bulk to the many furniture outlets in my area as well as sell carpentry services to the many low cost housing manufacturers that buy doors and built in closets in bulk.

The reason why I decided to go with baby furniture is that my experience in selling goods here has shown me that more people are willing to buy baby related products here than anything else due to the fact that everybody loves babies and that almost everybody knows somebody who is going to have one.

I was hoping to make this for my next child, but the wife and I decided that Alyson should be an only child. Well at least biological. We are still forging ahead with Foster Parenting (the process takes 6 months). So I won't be building this idea for a cradle...

I was thinking of building a heart shaped cradle. The Heart shape would enable the crib to be placed into a corner of the nursery, and hearts and babies just go together. I was going to go so far as to make the vertical slats in heart shapes too, and put those through the top rail via Lovetail mortise and tenons.

Of course you got some serious challenges ahead of you...and the new parents as well. The mattress would have to be custom made which is easy enough granted, but fitted sheets for a heart shaped cribs might be tough to find. Luckily I live near the coast where there is a pile of yachts and their custom shaped beds. I was going to get a local company that makes custom fitted sheets for these yachts to make up a bunch for me if I did make this cradle.

I thought this cradle through so well that I actually approached the Make-A-Wish Foundation. I was going to donate it to one of their auctions or something..hoping the high profile charity could get some serious money for such a hard fought project and at the same time, be done for a great charity. But its been a month and there has been no word, so I guess they think I'm crazy. I'll let you decide, but its definately an outside-the-box-type-of-idea for children's furniture.

You asked...

I think one of the reasons this post is not getting many replies is just the nature of the question. Children's furniture by nature is not custom made, at least not from a business standpoint. It makes little sense to go all out and make beautiful furniture for children since they are so hard on furniture and outgrow it so quickly.

Most of the people that do make high end children's furniture do so because its for their children or Grandchildren. Its special to them and thus destined to be an heirloom.

At the same time I think Tod has a very valiant point. No matter where you live, or the laws in your area, people are leery of building children's furniture as the requirements are quite stringent. No woodworker would want to build a project that ends up hurting a child, at least no woodworker on a forum that begins with www.familywoodworking.com.

My Train Cradle is a great example of form outdoing function. Its fairly safe I admit, but I made two mistakes on it I will NEVER make again on children's furniture. The first it the sharp edges. I eased many edges, but not ALL of them. On the ones I felt were unlikely to see little hands, I quickly found out Alyson can find them. She has gotten a splinter once from one such edge.

The other is the rocker design. Its shortened to keep it from obstructing the look of the train cradle. But it sticks out just past the car body of the train. She has tripped on it several times. It should be shortened by a few inches to keep it from tripping up a child who is just learning balance.

Luckily this is my own design and for my own child. I shutter to think what would happen if I sold this and had a customer complain about these two deficient areas. I'm just saying, be extra cautious with children's furniture, especially with unique designs like I have suggested and displayed here.