How To Make A Sturdy Stair Railing From An Idle Baby Crib Side 

I want to make a sturdy stair railing for my little kids from an idle baby crib side at home. This is my first trash to treasure project! 

For little kids on stairs, it’s always safe and nice if they can hold onto the stair balusters (the vertical bars under a handrail). We have steep stairs at home with only a handrail which is too high for my little kids to reach.  

However, we have an idle baby crib side. It looks so similar to a stair railing. Can I just make it a stair railing? 

How can I get the accurate stair angle? If I take the crib side all apart, how can I reconnect the thin boards back together in a sturdy way? How can I securely fasten the stair railing to the wall? Let’s dive into it.

Contents

• Materials
• Tools
• Making steps
  • Take apart the crib side
  • Cut off corners to create stair angle
  • Sand off the original paint
  • Decide the assembling method
  • Assemble the stair railing
  • Paint the stair railing white
  • Attach the stair railings to the wall 
• Bonus tip: How to drill a relatively right angle without a drill press? 

Materials

• Our idle crib side 
• 2″ trim screws
• Wood glue
• White paint

Tools

• 1 hand saw and 1 paint scraper 
• 1 electric drill, 3/16″ and 3/8″ drill bits, and 1 Phillip head driver bit
• 1 marking tape
• 1 degree protractor (T bevel is recommended)
• Some sand papers (and 1 electric sander)
• 1 paint brush
• 1 woodworking square

Making steps: 

Take apart the crib side

I use a paint scraper to remove the top long board, which will be our future handrail. It was glued on with four wood dowel pins. Then I cut all the vertical bars off with a hand saw. They were glued on with pre-cut fitted holes. 

Cut off corners to create stair angle

Before cutting, I need to find out the stair angle. I use a marking tape to connect all the tips of stair threads on the wall. Then any common degree protractor will do to measure the angle. Just be sure to average out several staircase angles instead of just one. Our stair angle is about 42 degree. A T-bevel is highly recommended here to transfer the angle and make the cut. 

Sand off the original paint

Sanding by hand takes me a long time, and it’s painfully boring. So I bought an electric sander for some last pieces. This is my second power tool. Honestly, I’m not a fan of it. But it speeds me up dramatically.

Decide the assembling method 

Now we have all the raw parts of the future stair railings. How can we connect them together? This is the challenging part. The balusters are thin, and they all have a weird angle at the ends. Plus, we want to create strong connections between balusters and the upper and bottom long boards. How can we deal with all these problems? Let’s sort them out. 

Nails or screws? 

Screws with pre-drilled holes give us more control, while nails usually can change direction getting in there. This may break the thin balusters. Yes, Bradley nails would make a difference. But a screw creates a stronger bond between two pieces against the gravity than a nail. For this stair railing project, screws win! 

What about screw direction? 

Should the screws be vertical to the floor or vertical to the joining faces? I choose the late, because it’s so much easier to drills vertical hole against a surface than in a strange angle. 

Find the perfect screw

We need long and thin screws with small heads. A YouTuber (The Honest Carpenter) recommended the 2″ finishing trim head screws which are perfect here. They are narrow enough to fit in those thin balusters. I can easily hide the small screw heads with a countersink drill bit. For the thick bottom long board, I drill holes for the screw heads to hide them. 

Assemble the stair railing

First I drill though the upper and bottom long boards with vertical holes. To get a more right-angle holes, I try to drill every hole from two ends to the middle. 

Then I drill holes in the balusters. Since they have 42-degree angled ends, I choose to drill at a one-third point instead of the central point. This allows longer space for screws inside the balusters.  

Next I attach all the balusters to the upper and bottom long boards with 2″ trim screws. To be honest, I have to adjust three balusters’ ends in order to assemble them. And I have to change one hole’s position so I can get that baluster attached on the long boards. 

Last I secure the handrail in place with four short screws in addition to some wood glue. 

How to drill a relatively right angle without a drill press? 

Let me share my way to drill a right angle hole without a drill press. I put a point level at the end of my drill! Yes, luckily I have a drill with a flat end surface which is vertical to the drill bit in it. All I need to do is to level the surface that I am going to drill a hole in. And level the point level on my drill’s end while drilling.

Paint the stair railing white

I paint the stair railing white to match the upper section of our stair railings.

Attach the stair railings to the wall 

I bought some heavy duty handrail brackets in antique brass. It is a set of 3 pack, so I use two for the upper and one for the bottom board. 

When I took off the old handrail, there were two long big nails attaching its top end to the wall. So I decide to use 2 corner brackets and 2 long screws to fasten both the top ends of long boards to the wall as well. 

Now my kids can hold onto the DIY stair railing while walking on the stairs. I’m so happy to see this trash to treasure project come true.

Do you have any trash to treasure ideas? Please comment below! Maybe we can make it together!