Bumper Room For Cát Tiên

The original 100-year old brick wall in our living space adds charm to our rowhouse, but will pose a hazard as Baby Cat learns to crawl and walk.

A solution has been percolating since I saw Kristen and Karl's "baby corral" for Cian in February. They used interlocking plastic baby gates secured to the floor. Cian couldn't be happier hanging out there.

Cát Tiên will be playing in our former dining space cushioned underfoot by a 7 foot by 7 foot rug from Ikea. I'd extend her play space all the way to the walls, and make some sort of doorway so adults can walk through the baby space to the living room area. Here's how everything would look:

At first, I thought about making frames and then attaching padding to these. These could be secured against the walls, or used as interlocking barriers.

Today, I got an inspiration from the New York Times in an article discussing how to liven up your bed with a headboard. A headboard! Of course! That was the perfect construction for the type of padded frames I was thinking of. It could be made of inexpensive plywood and fabric:

Fast and Economical Mattress Upgrades, Stephen Milioti, NYT 4/2/2009
For a bedroom in a 19th-century home outside Chicago, Jaymes Richardson and Don Raney, interior designers who own Civility Design, a Chicago firm, upholstered the wall behind the bed in bright orange silk punctuated with push-pin tufting buttons, an approach that can be replicated with less expensive fabric.
     For beginners who want to tackle the headboard-size version of this project, Mr. Richardson suggested starting with a quarter-inch-thick sheet of plywood cut to a size a little wider than the bed (“leave an inch on either side of the bed,” he said). Cover it with quarter- or half-inch-thick low-density foam wrapped around the back edges, and staple it to the plywood on the back at each corner. Then stretch fabric over the foam and around the back, and staple it about an inch from the edge all around.
     Tufting buttons, which can be custom made in the same fabric, will conceal the screws used to attach the board to the wall. Decide how many buttons you want and where you want them — Mr. Richardson suggests four (two toward the top and two closer to the bottom) — and mark the spots on the fabric with a pen.
     To keep the fabric from fraying when the board is screwed to the wall, cut small incisions at each pen mark with a blade. Then drill two-inch screws through the incisions (inserting sinkers for the screws should not be necessary, unless the walls are very thin or there are no studs). Once the board is hung, attach the buttons by pushing the pins into the wood around the screw heads.

Christina is, understandably, concerned about barriers to good flow. So, the solution will have to add to the pleasantness of our space.

Update (Friday, 4/3/09)
Unless I can make the barriers feel transparent, the above design might not be able to preserve flow. An alternative like the one below would be a decent compromise.