Nursery

Cribs, play yards and the Moses basket by the parents’ bed:

for the first months most babies in Costa Rica sleep in a Moses basket or a side-car co-sleeper crib pushed against their parents’ bed. The folding play yard comes next: it packs into its own bag and goes to the grandparents in Nicoya for the weekend. A full crib is the piece that stays put, and convertible models lose a side rail to become a toddler bed. The dresser with a padded changing top and the rocking chair sit under nursery furniture, and the mobile over the crib under nursery decor.

Sarchí cedar or imported melamine:

that choice decides how the furniture ages. Workshops in Sarchí build cribs and dressers in Spanish cedar, laurel or guanacaste, often to measure, and the result is heavy, can be sanded and repainted, and survives being taken apart for a move. Imported flat-pack sets in melamine or MDF are lighter and cheaper, but particleboard does not forgive: every assembly loosens the threads a little, and a cut edge that gets wet swells for good. If the crib is meant for more than one child, wood is the better bet. Whatever the frame, check crib mattresses and baby bedding against the crib itself rather than the label, since sizes vary between makers.

Colones for a play yard and for a wooden convertible:

the two ends sit far apart. A new play yard costs from about ₡50,000 to ₡140,000, depending on whether it adds a bassinet level and a changer, while a full-size wooden convertible crib starts around ₡250,000 and passes ₡500,000 with a matching dresser. Used, they behave differently. A play yard loses value fast because the mesh, the pad and the fold locks are exactly what wears. A solid-wood crib holds up much better: the wood barely ages, and what a buyer pays for is a complete set, with every bolt, the conversion rails and no deep gouges.

Stripped bolt holes, swollen edges and termites in a used crib:

each points to a different problem, so ask to see the crib assembled before you pay. A bolt that spins without biting means the thread in the particleboard is gone, and a crib that rocks when you push a corner will not get firmer. Missing Allen bolts or barrel nuts are harder to replace than they sound, because many sets use their own sizes. On melamine, run a hand along the bottom edges and legs: bubbled or soft laminate means water got in. On solid wood, tooth marks on the top rail sand out; cracks at the joints do not. Look under the piece for small hard pellets the colour of the wood and tap the legs. Pellets and a hollow sound mean drywood termites, and they will not stay in that one piece. On a play yard, both halves of each top rail should lock with a click and the mesh should be whole at the corners.

The hardware bag, the conversion rails and a crib’s next home:

those decide whether a buyer makes the trip. Photograph the crib assembled in daylight, then the bolts and key laid out on a towel, then the conversion rails. Say whether it is solid wood or melamine, and whether it came from a Sarchí workshop or out of a box. Give the assembled size and the length of the longest piece once apart, since that decides car or pickup, and mention any repainting or treatment against termites. Someone coming from Guápiles in a borrowed pickup wants to know before setting off whether the crib is already dismantled and whether the Allen key is still in the bag.