Heirlooms: Baby Basket Restoration

Personal Project- Family Heirloom Baby Basket

For those of you who may not know, my husband and I are expecting our first baby - a girl - in January. So while the weather has been nice we have been finishing up some painting and repair projects for the nursery. Full on nesting here we come!

I am a hand-me-down, heirloom, found at the curb and fixed up kind of girl. So when we found out we were (are) expecting, I was excited to be the next in our family to use the baby basket. It is a wood laundry basket my grandma bought "for $5" back when her first born came along, my uncle, and was also used for my mom. This was the early 1950's and the basket doubled as a bassinet and a car seat! Times have changed!

Skip forward a generation and it was used by my older cousins and by my brother and I when we were newborns. It fit perfectly on my mom's nightstand and kept us close those first few weeks. Skip forward one more generation and it has also been used by my cousin's kids.

Needless to say after almost 65 years in service, 3 generations, and many babies this well used "laundry basket" was in need of some TLC.

The bottom of the basket was almost blown out from the top and there were broken and missing sections of the wood slats. And the bottom trim was completely missing.

I reinforced the wood understructure with metal L brackets, patched the missing and broken pieces with 1/32 plywood (thin enough to cut with scissors!), and pulled out all the old loose nails and reattached each slat with glue and new nails.

I used 1/2" splint as the binding trim around the base.

Then the basket got a new coat of paint. I was able to take a broken piece to the hardware store to match the yellow color painted by my aunt and gender neutral for all babies to come.

Little pad back in the with a new "Good Night Moon" printed fabric cover.

Our baby girl's bassinet is waiting for her- and hopefully many more babies and generations!