Decorative Ladder

Do you love old ladders?
I have been searching for one for years and could never find one in my price range so when I read Diana's Our vintage home love post on how she made her own, I thought I would give it a try.

For instructions on how to build it, please visit Diana's blog. She is so creative and her home is filled with vintage finds and handcrafted furniture pieces. She is a true inspiration.

Why did I need a ladder? just because they are pretty and very versatile. I could use it to hang bath towels or magazines but really, I needed a ladder to display my collection of scarves. I no longer need to rummage through my drawers in search of the right colored scarf since I can now see them all very well on my new old looking ladder. I am only showing 5 scarves above because I did not want to crowd the ladder for this picture but  I have many many more.

So what do you think?

After putting it together, I stained it with a minwax  dark walnut stain.

Once the stain was dry (24 hours later), I rubbed some leftover wax candle where I wanted to distress the ladder and painted it with white interior latex paint (2 coats).

As soon as the paint was dry (it only took about 2 hours), I used fine steel wool and rubbed it where the candle wax was. I did not really remember where it was, I just sanded everywhere and the paint came off where the wax had previously been rubbed. The steel wool also gave the paint an older look leaving some grayish tones. (remember to use gloves when working with steel wool)



I really like the wax and steel wool method for distressing furniture as it takes less effort in the sanding process and does not remove the stain applied before the paint. I also chose to not cover up  the screws I used to hold each dowel with wood putty because they made the ladder look even more vintage and it was less work for me.