Tuesday, September 27, 2016

The Ladder Approach to Vertical Storage





Living in a round building with less than 700 square feet of living space is challenge enough, but it's time to rise above our floor space issues.

With cooler weather and increased energy, coupled with the impending doom that winter always threatens, Keith and I are pushing hard on Poor Farm Projects. He's been busy on our chicken coop, which I'll blog about in my next post, while I have been struggling to find creative ways to get more essentials out of storage in the decrepit house, and into this micro-home of ours.

Yesterday, I attacked a century old ladder, cutting it down to size. Seven foot size.



The ladder was purchased at a friends farm auction over a decade ago, and too rickety for its original use, Keith did not balk when I asked if I could hack away at it. A couple passes with my circular saw and I had a workable section which I planned to convert to a blanket rack for our bedroom.

The ladder was imperfect of course, a couple rungs had bent slightly over the years (I can relate, "Bent Rung" was my Indian name those years I lived in SD) and there were old paint stains, nicks and splintered areas.



Not to mention some old dried bird dung. It was a farm ladder after all.

I scraped off the majority of dirt and debris with a stiff wire brush and then hauled out more of the ten year old, combo stain-polyurethane product I used on our window trim last week. The ladder wood was super dry and soaked up the stain as fast as I could apply it.

I especially appreciated the hardware still attached to the ladder so coated it as well, since it was now purely decorative and would never be put to use to secure the other ladder section I amputated. Just to be sure it dried well, I left the ladder outside overnight and then brought it inside this morning.



It fits perfectly in the oddly shaped corner formed by our closet and the round wall of our upstairs bedroom.



Tomorrow I'll wire the ladder to the studs in the wall so we don't have any late night crashing of ladder onto floor or our bed.



It feels good to be getting more of the finish work done inside, bit by bit by bit and to be moving so many of  our floor space hogging items, up and up and up.

21 comments:

  1. Splendid use of an awkward space, and I do so love using up the odds and sods in the re-purposed junk pile too. It kind of justifies why we never throw anything out, lol. ;)

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    1. I just wish I could live long enough to use up HALF of all we've saved.

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  2. What a wonderful way to re-purpose a lovely old ladder.

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  3. Great use of space. Love the idea of a blanket rack. I might've flipped the ladder so that the (now bottom) rung could be put to use too. Like how your your combo stain is bringing a lot of different bits (sills, frames, ladder, etc) into sync. Looking forward to what magic you'll bring to a chicken coup!

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    1. I might still do that but I hated to "bury" the cool metal work near the floor. Will see how many more blankets I end up hanging on the ladder. Supossed to be cold this winter.

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    2. Could always just screw in a top rung - best of both then. Yeah, I'm reading bad news about this coming winter. I gotta get crackin' around here to winterize.

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  4. Good use of space. I'm constantly trying to change how we store stuff here. We have so much clutter!

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    1. This has been my new clutter rule questionaire. Do I love it? (not just like) and Will I use it in the next year? If I can't answer both questions yes...I throw it away, or give it away or sell it or at least I think hard about doing one of those three things.

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  5. Great use of an old ladder and the space it now fills, Donna. And thenspace the blankets might have taken up can also find another purpose.
    And, yes, if we donhear any positive news on the house front, we will let you know and we hope we all will have reason to celebrate.....one day (soon?)

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    1. Lets hope! (and pray and maybe make a few side deals)

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  6. I had the honor of seeing this piece in person! Came out gorgeous!!
    Way to go sis....
    ~ Maggie

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    1. I have more ladder for you sister. Just say the word.

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  7. Great use of an odd little corner & antique 'Junque'. I, too, love what that old can of 'stain' is doing for your woodwork. I think I'm gonna have to get off my ass & steal a couple of your projects for my cold basement apartment.

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    1. I've lived in a few basement apartments Sharon. I feel ya.

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  8. What great use of an old ladder, it looks lovely and fits so well.

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    1. Now I'm thinking of using other parts of the same ladder as horizontal book cases. Saw it on a blog somewhere. Those dang blogs.

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    2. Oooooooo - I've seen that done too. Now where was that??? Great idea though. It would fit right in with the blanket rack & use up the leftovers. You could hang it in the bathroom as a towel rack too.

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  9. https://www.amazon.com/SoBuy-12-99x70-87-Inch-Modern-Leaning-FRG15-SCH/dp/B00ZZ3PTZI/ref=pd_lpo_196_tr_img_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=M55QMWM53AWVTM0AN51D Here's the link to the ladder book rack.

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  10. Wow, this looks great. I have a couple of small old ladders in the potting shed that aren't doing anything... hmm.. this could be a really good idea for our room!

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  11. Brilliant.

    I would just take it up off the floor and attach it to the wall and the closet. No chance of it falling and easier to clean under :-)

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