Customer Reviews

Convertible Captain's Crib, Changing Drasser Plans

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This is a solid set of plans for a basic convertible crib and dresser. Unless you have experience reading drawings/blueprints, you might find these plans a bit challenging. There are numerous mis-spellings, and many views of the parts have missing dimensions. I did not find any situation where any of the drawings were missing holes or features, but there are a number of holes without dimensions or indications of thru-hole or specific depth. The nice thing about this design is that it gives the builder a fair amount of latitude to make some cosmetic changes such as edge profiles or face designs in the drawers. Construction is simple, however the recommendation to use only dowels is not something I felt was solid. I opted to use brad nails where I could hide the nail heads, and pocket holes to reinforce the dowels. Also, a drill press is a must for this project.

These plans are OK for a starting point, but be prepared to make modifications and corrections on your own. This is not a project for a beginner who wants to simply follow directions.

You will need to be prepared to figure out your own way to lay out the pieces on a sheet of plywood. For example, the dresser unit uses a bit more than a single standard sheet of plywood. With some careful planning, you can modify the plans to just fit a single sheet of plywood and save yourself some money. It would have been nice if the plans tell you how much starting material to use (and how to layout the pieces on the starting material).

Some of the dimensions will need to be modified depending on what kind of drawer slides you buy. The plans don't give you specific dimensions for drawer slides. You'll have to modify dimensions depending on what type of slides you buy. Also, when finishing the exposed ends of the veneered plywood you may have to modify the dimensions depending on if you use thin vinyl, veneer, or real wood. If you don't think this through, you'll end up with some pretty big gaps (or things that don't fit).

Some dimensions on the cut list are wrong, and some of the locations of holes are wrong. Take the time to read and understand everything (then double check the dimensions on your own).

When converting to a bed, you only keep the drawer unit and throw away the rest of the crib pieces. Then you start from scratch making a bed (it does not re-use the crib parts as you might expect from looking at the photos). There are better bed plans out there.