Repurposing a crib as a magazine rack

The other day, a friend of mine made a Facebook post seeking ideas for what to do with her child's old drop-side crib. (In case you've been out of the crib stage for awhile, it is now illegal to sell or even give away cribs with drop-sides due to safety concerns). Several of her friends posted ideas and one posted a link to this article with several ideas. 

My favorite suggestion was the magazine rack:

Source: Regives.com

I have been planning to pick up a magazine rack at Ikea (oh, Ikea, why can't you be closer?!) or the Container Store. But, since we haven't had a free day or extra money lately, it's been on hold. But the photo above got me thinking.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, our son was in his "lifetime" crib. 

It starts as a crib, then converts to a toddler bed, and then to a full size bed.  (I realized after my two hour trip down memory lane, that of all the thousands of photos I took of my son, I never took a newborn photo of him in his crib. Bummer. I blame it on sleep deprivation).

Now that we're in the new house, D is in his big boy bed.

The two small sides of the crib have been hanging out in the basement. In most of the Pinterest crib magazine racks I saw, people used the long side of the crib for their racks. Since we'll be needed that for D's bed for the foreseeable future, I decided the short side would work out just fine.

Yep, that'll work. 

It didn't take long for me to remember the losing battle we have fought over the last three years with the milk stains on the wood.

They didn't really matter, since I was planning to cover the slats with magazines, but I had just heard of a new solution so I decided to give it a shot. 

Add boiling hot water to a squirt or two of dish soap. Our soap dispenser and insta hot made this very easy.

Next, swish the water around until it makes lots of foamy bubbles.

Dip a dry cloth in ONLY the foam and wipe away.

Wow! It worked!

I could have saved myself three years of cleaning frustration if I had known this trick.

I used a little goop-be-gone to get rid of the safety sticker since it's pretty unlikely that we'll use this set as a crib again, or that I'll forget the safety tip about bumpers and other items with an infant.

The smaller size works well with water closet.

I started out with the magazines in our bedroom. Do you see a theme?

So, for the bargain price of nothing, I was able to put in a magazine rack like we wanted without a trip to Ikea (saving lots of gas money!), and I even decluttered a little of the basement.

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