DIY Wood Baby Gym

I saw the plans for this baby gym last year, but River was too old for it. This past summer I remembered about it and decided to build one for Ocean.

I actually made two- one for Ocean and one for our neighbor who had twins two months after Ocean was born.

I used a cabinet grade plywood that has a nice, stainable finish on one side and a primed surface for painting on the other. It's cheaper, and budget was an issue, so I decided to give it a try. I painted the primed side and the edges with Annie Sloan chalk paint in Napoleon Blue (the same color I used on the LEGO table) and stained the other side with Minwax Classic Gray. I waxed and buffed everything and added some hanging toys.

I like the two-tone look. The gray stain has bluish undertones that blend nicely with the blue paint.

This was a relatively simple project, though I will admit it took me about two months to actually finish them. I worked on them around Halloween costumes and other distractions, so it was not my quickest project.

I followed the directions but they turned out bigger than I expected. One gym is big enough for two two-month-old babies to lay side by side and have plenty of room. They're also taller than I expected, so I used plastic rings I've had since Sunshine was little to attach some of the toys so they'd hang lower.

River is at the perfect age for this, so I'm glad I finished it when I did. He loves grabbing at the toys. The owl makes a tinkling noise when it moves, the elephant has a rattle, and the bug is a pull toy that retracts after it's pulled down. So far he's only discovered the owl's noise, but he'll soon discover the others' as well.