Hi L.,
My little one alternated between our bed and his crib in his room throughout his first year and a half. He learned how to climb out of his crib at around 18 mo. (he's 4 1/2 now) but we took the mattress out of his crib and put it on the floor, took the crib out of the room, ultra-baby proofed the room and put a gate across his door at night.
After three or four nights of standing at the gate calling us and us going to the gate and comforting him and telling him to go back and lie down and go to sleep (and some crying on his part and worrying on our part,) he finally got into the routine. He would wake us up when the sun came up and call us to come get him and I'd bring him into our bed at that point. This way he wasn't banned from our bed, but also had a que he could understand that let him know when it was the appropriate time to do so.
I wasn't a big fan of letting him cry it out either, but at about 18 mo. they begin to realize this and use it to their advantage. When he could understand what we were saying, and communicate in turn, we would explain things to him up to three times and then finally realized he needed to work it out on his own and we would leave him to cry, talk, sing or whatever he had to do to fall asleep.
We only had to keep the gate across his door for 6 - 9 months and finally realized that when he woke up at sunrise, he always wanted to come straight to our room. We don't have stairs, or anything that he can really get into to hurt himself, so this wasn't too much of a concern. That's what worked for us, and even now at 4 1/2 he sleeps happily and soundly through the night in his own room and around 7a comes and snuggles with us for a little bit in ours.
Good Luck!
E.