Welcome Your Toddler into the Kitchen!

This isn't a huge DIY project but for anybody else that is currently dealing with the pick me up pick me up stage this could be helpful in being able to retain your sanity in the kitchen. 
I guess you could call it a toddler proof step stool. 

Materials:
IKEA step stool
2 - 1" x 3" board cut to 9 1/4"
1 - 1" x 3" board cut to 16"
4 - square 2" x 2" dowels cut to 17" (this can be changed based on how high your counter is. Doing it again I would actually do 18 inches so her little digits don't get caught between the counter and the stool). 
8 - 1 1/2" wood screws
4 - 1 3/4" wood screws
Whatever color paint you want - the glossier the easier to clean

I bought select pine boards from Home Depot as I thought that would retain shape from dings better than the common board pine they have. 

I apologize that I do not have the full process of putting it together but it is pretty self explanatory. We had to work a little bit backwards as we already had the stepstool from IKEA for a while but the joy of IKEA furniture is that you can take it apart!
I found one of the gazillion allen wrenches in my drawer (I have put a lot of IKEA furniture together...I mean a lot) and took the top step off the body. I then screwed the square dowels up through the bottom of the step so the screws will be hidden when  you reconnect the top. If you want the step to go back on the stool flat you will need to counter sink the screw hole so that the screw does not stick out. 

From there we screwed the side 9 1/4" inch boards into the dowels. You might need to two for this to spread the dowels so the boards are flush with the dowel edges. Once you do that you can push or pull in the sides to connect the front board. Easy as that!

Inga loved it from the get go and immediately learned how to sit down and crawl out of it. I have seen others where they put a dowel in the back as a brace....meh seems like a lot of extra work and she hasn't freaked out and frantically fallen backwards...

Since our step stool was already black, painting it was not really something I was all that excited about. When I went to buy the boards I checked the oops paint and what the hell, there is a black...ish semi-gloss paint for $2. Psch sold *throws money* TAKE MY MONEY!
Because the select pine boards are much better quality they have much sharper edges and corners so I just took a medium grit piece of sandpaper to it. Took about 5 minutes. 

All in all this cost:
$15 for IKEA step stool
$15 for Select pine boards (I bought one square dowel and one 1" x 3" board)
$2 Oops paint

Way cheaper than those crazy $100+ Montessori ones. 

Child proofing doesn't have to be ugly

I am sure one of things that many parents dread is the absolute hideousness (yup making it a word) of  child proofing. Putting those weird covers on the door handles, giant air mattresses around your pointy furniture, and gates at every corner that just seek out stubbing your toes and laughing maniacally as you hobble away...or fall down the stairs. 
Every single one of your lovely decorative items has been hoarded away into a cupboard that of course you are unable to get into without a key fob, key pad number and retina scan to open. 
It doesn't have to be like that. Child proofing does not have to be ugly or make your home look like you are crazy. 
We were a bit slack on the whole child proofing thing. We just put some covers on a couple outlets, which now we can't seem to remove (thanks IKEA) without a screwdriver. I wonder what the swedish words for Adult proof are...maybe that is the name of these covers.  Otherwise our child proofing consists of moving the dog's water bowl and putting a couple blockers in the bottom drawers. I am sure when she starts walking around on her own that we will need to put the locks on some other cupboards but until then we will just keep an eye on her. 
One of the pieces of furniture that I was worried about from the get-go was our coffee table.
It is a sharp pointy death trap of corners. We tried putting some of those little corner covers on it, but I think I knocked it off almost every time I stood up so that was not going to work. It also has drawers on the side. That and it looked like our table had weird deformities on it. I thought there had to be a better way right? Off to Pinterest!

Searching....child proofing....really? Why not just get rid of the coffee table if this is the result. 

Hmmm what about buying an ottoman instead....$250?! Shut the front door...no!
For that price I can make my own ottoman....wait..what? I could totally make my own ottoman! I made my own tufted headboard. I could totally do that, right?
Searching....DIY coffee table ottoman....hmmm seems like lots of cutting and gluing and nailing...ain't nobody got time for that.
What if.....I just made a cover for the coffee table and then removed it when she wasn't a hazard to herself anymore? 
Searching....removable coffee table cover....really didn't find anything other than a slip cover, which really wasn't what I was looking for. I needed to add some cushion to the corners. Looks like I get to be a Pinterest Pioneer and be the first. 
I decided that I was going to make a box to lay over the top part of the coffee table and then cover it. 
Here are the steps I took:

First thing is that I measure the coffee table each side and the top so I knew how big I had to get the boards. I planned on getting peg board if I decided to be a masochist and do tufting. I knew that peg board was flimsy that I had to get wood to put in the corners to hold it a bit more stable so that was going to require that I add a few inches to each piece of the wood to compensate and have it still lay over the top of the coffee table. 
Went to Home Depot and found a big sheet of peg board and had the guy cut all the pieces for me there! It was 7 cuts and he didn't even charge me the $.25 per extra cut. So much easier that trying to it myself. Can't even imagine how much time that saved me. I am not a big power tool gal ironically.

My Project Manager in the back was making sure I got all the items on the list.....

Peg Board $13

Wood dowel $3 - cut that at home easily with a hand saw. 

Once I got home I found some screws and a screw driver and started putting it together. 

This really did not need to be perfect at all as the entire thing was going to be covered in foam anyways. And the peg board already had some nice holes for me to work with. I hadn't screwed the top piece on yet so it looks really wonky but once it was all screwed together it was pretty straight. 

I found some zip ties in the garage just to put along the edges to put them together since, like I said before, peg board is pretty flimsy and just needed some stability. 

The second part I did need a bit of help just to get it as smooth as possible. 4 hands were better than 2 for this part. 

I bought 2  Mattress toppers from Wal-mart for about $11 a piece. We stapled each other individually over the frame and took care to make sure the corners were extra squishy. 

Then I bought some quilt batting from Wal-mart as well for about $9 and wrapped that around to make it smooth. We stapled this as well and had to fold it a little bit in the corners. 

Then in typical Heisick fashion we only finished half the project and left it without a cover for about 3 weeks....Inga really loved pulling on the quilt batting. 

My mom is a sewing phenom, so she offered to help make the cover for it rather than just stapling the cover over it to make it more permanent. I don't like permanent....especially with an almost one year old and bulldog. 

She said we would make a slipcover with some elastic with a hem. 

Basically the day ended up being my mom making the whole slip cover and I just watching the babes cruise around. 

We followed the steps for this cover here

After we (mom) did that, I had to put the elastic all the way through the hem. We fitted it over the top and pulled as hard as we could and tied it tight. 

Here is the finished product!

The cover is super lightweight and can easily be pulled up and removed the take off the cover and it is super soft.  Inga won't stop cruising around it. 

The fabric we got was Sunbrella outdoor water repellent fabric so it will hold up nicely. 

All in all, the entire project cost me around $65 and maybe a total of 3 hours to do the entire thing (not including our 3 week procrastination).

Once she is able to walk around and not look like a little drunk human we can remove it if we want....although we both really like it and might not. 

Let me know what you think!