For a few years, we’ve seen decorative ladders used in a bathroom to store and hang towels. With our bathroom’s design, we don’t need a ladder to hang our towels. But, we’ve got three Saranoni blankets on our couch (and let’s be honest, they often end up on the floor). I recently discovered something similar to a towel ladder for the bathroom, a blanket ladder. Blanket ladders are typically shorter, around 4-5 feet tall, and have several rungs for blankets to hang. On sites like Amazon and Wayfair, blanket ladders start at approximately $60. I knew that I could build my blanket ladder for cheaper. This DIY project is a great holiday project to cozy up your home.
Buying The Wood & Supplies
I didn’t look at instructions in advance because I considered it to be pretty straightforward. I’m not a very handy person and lacked the tools to cut my wood. Luckily, Lowe’s was able to cut the wood for me based on the dimensions I gave. Ideally, the ends should be angled to be flush against your wall, and I didn’t ask Lowe’s to do this. I did some measuring at home on how tall I wanted the blanket ladder to be and wanted it around 50″ inches tall with 3-4 rungs for all of our living room blankets. Lowes had some Douglas Fir 2x4s that were 92.5″ long. Having Lowe’s cut in half meant my ladder would be 46.25″ tall (keeping in mind that it would be shorter when leaned on an angle against the wall) because of trigonometry. I grabbed a second 2×4 to have Lowes cut the rungs. I’m fitting it in a corner, and because of that, it also had to be narrower than a standard blanket ladder. The rungs had to be 11″ long.
The other things you need depend on what you have already on hand. I picked out some wood stain I liked along with a roller brush (though I think I would’ve been better off with a standard paintbrush) and some carpentry nails long enough to go a decent way into the rungs of the ladder. You’ll also want a polyurethane coat (which is just a clear coat) and a drop cloth to paint.
I’ve compiled a supply list and steps to build along with sample dimensions. It took me a few hours of work spread over a few days as you have to allow time for the stain and clear coat to dry.
Supply List
- (2 or more) 2x4s depending on how tall and wide you’d like your blanket ladder
- Nails
- Sand Paper or Power Sander
- Wood Stain or Paint
- Polyurethane clear coat
- Paint Brush
- Drop Cloth
- Measuring Tape
- Blankets to hang on your new blanket ladder
Steps to Build DIY Blanket Ladder
- Measure Space and calculate how tall and wide you’d like your blanket ladder
- Buy wood and optionally have the store cut the wood for you
- If you didn’t have the store cut the wood for you, you’ll have to cut it yourself.
- Optional but recommended: cut the ends of the long pieces on an angle so the ladder sits flush against your wall
- Sand down all of the wood so it’s smooth and wipe down with microfiber cloth to remove dust.
- Stain the wood
- After the wood stain dries, apply atleast one clear coat
- Place the rungs roughly where you’d like them to go. I recommend a distance between rungs of atleast 12″.
- Measure out where the rungs should be placed so everything is exact
- Nail in the rungs to the sides. I used two nails per rung on each side so the rungs wouldn’t turn at all once assembled.
- Once assembled, wipe down the ladder to remove any debris.
- Hang your blankets and be cozy!
Sample Dimensions
Like I said, my ladder had to be narrow based on the space I was putting it in, so the rungs had to be 11″ long. Ideally these would be longer.
- (3-4) rungs of 11 inches
- (2) sides of 46.25 inches
- roughly 2 Inches on the top of the ladder before the top rung starts
- Top rung is centered at 3.25 inches from the top of the side
- Each rung is spaced 12 inches apart from where the nail is