DIY - Ladder

Lately, if you've seen any of my social media posts, I have been completing a lot of DIY projects. I've always loved creating "things" and I regret not taking a woodshop class in high school; it would have made everything a little bit easier.

My latest DIY project that turned out to be harder than I expected was my ladder project. I'm hoping that I can help a true "do it yourself-er" with my mess-ups.

Materials:

wood - it turns out not just any wood because I made it that much harder for myself. Make sure you decide on the thickness first. I didn't and bought 2x4 which were a little too wide for this project so I split them. I should have just bought 2x1.
Screws - the main point about the screws is that they are longer than the thickness of your wood or else they aren't doing much.

Stain - I ended up finding my new favorite stain at Rona. It's called Early American and I loved the color.

Sander - I used the sander to soften some of the tougher spots but it wasn't necessary.

Instructions:

This by no means is the best way to make a ladder. Especially since when I went to screw the runs in some of the holes that I predrilled didn't match up.

Cut the two end pieces. In my case, I didn't cut them at all because I wanted my ladder to be 8ft tall. However, if you need your ladder to be a little shorter you will have to measure and cut.
Next cut the rungs. I knew how wide I wanted my ladder to be so I measured and cut 8, in case I needed extras. It was a good thing. Turns out you should always measure at least twice because some of mine ended up being different lengths.

3. Next, I sanded all of the pieces. This isn't a necessary step but I wanted to do it so that when I hung blankets on it I wouldn't get some pieces of wood stuck to them.

4. Next, I stained them. This part for me was the easiest. It was just like painting, so it flew by. I didn't necessarily follow the instructions. They encourage two coats, I went with one because I liked that you could see the grain of the wood and the stamps. I did make sure to wait 24 hours to make sure that the stain had completely soaked in.

5. Finally, once everything has dried, screw in the rungs of the ladder. This was definitely the most frustrating. Some of my rungs were angled, some were too short. There is definitely an art to it, and when I figure it out I will share it with you.

I enjoyed the project, I've enjoyed all of the projects that Nick and I have done together. This was the first one I did on my own (he helped when I ran into problems). This projected really showed me how much I would have benefitted from even one class in woodworking. At least then I'd know how to use all of the tools. Despite some of the rungs being a little off, you couldn't really tell. So with some help, and using a level we were able to pull the ladder together.