Library Ladder (and hardware) for $175

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I LOVE this library ladder–total dream come true for me to climb up and select a book!  I have been thinking and researching how to make this dream happen for a while–all of the hardware and ladders I was finding were super expensive (ladder and hardware for $500 or more???)! I knew there had to be a way to DIY this for less. Once I figured it out, this whole project probably took me about 20 hours of work time or less. (You can see my bookshelf tutorial here.)

First I found a great tutorial that I thought I could modify.  Here it is.  It was super helpful. Then, I bought my supplies:

• 3–1×4 high quality boards like these ($20 each)= $60
• Barn door hardware from Amazon (this is what I bought)= $69
• 2–caster wheels like these= 2X $7.00 = $14
• Stain: Minwax Weathered Oak and Minwax Early American $5 each= $10
• Minwax Clear Satin Polyurethane =$13

Total= $168. Yes mama. Now that, I could live with. I started by cutting the boards to length.  I made the long pieces a little longer than I thought I would need them (always easier to cut off more than add it back on.) I also used an 8 degree angle on our miter saw instead of the 12 degree they recommend on the tutorial.  I think the 12 degree would have been great if we had a little more room in our library/music room, but I wanted it to be a little closer to the shelf at the bottom, so hence the 8 degree. My handy husband helped me with the math for the length of the long boards (triangles and whatnot). I made the steps 14″. Then, I began using our Hitachi router for the first time.  I researched routers before buying this one, and am thrilled with this light-weight yet powerful model from Hitachi. I also have these router bits, which I needed for the project. I had never used a router before, so I watched a few videos, read all the directions, practiced on some scraps, and followed that tutorial!

I began by clamping the boards one at a time to the worktable and used a small bull-nose on every edge. Once I got the hang of it, it went pretty fast and was really satisfying!

Then came the routing for the steps.  I opted NOT to do the spindles in the tutorial, as I thought this would be solid enough without them for our purposes (and spindles are surprisingly expensive).  I also didn’t do their fancy step edges, I wanted it more rustic looking. I used the spacer block the way they suggested, cutting my 8-degree angle. You can see on this first one (I started at the bottom of the ladder), I didn’t get it quite straight and had to file it down a little, but it still worked fine in the end. 

Then, I put a scrap piece of wood into the routed groove, used my spacer, and just kept going down the ladder.

After doing both long pieces, I filed them down to make the steps fit a little easier. 

Looks good! I felt so proud. 

Now to put it all together!  I drilled pilot holes for the screws, and did it just the way they show on the tutorial. Then I put in wood glue and stuck the steps in. 

I had to tap some with my mallet and jiggle some in order to get both long pieces on there.  Sometimes while I was tapping one side, the boards on the other side would come loose…arrrrgh.  It took a while but finally I got all of the board into their grooves. 

Here is what the joints looked like!

Ahhhh…success.  Then I just used my power drill to tighten in the screws and it was super solid! 

Next I put on the wheels from the barn wood hardware on the top.  Hubs and me installed the rail on our bookshelf (just followed the directions, it was pretty easy).  At that point, I took the whole thing into the library/music room and hung it up for the first time!  I just wanted to mark the bottom cuts accurately, so I used the casters I had bought and held them up to the side of the ladder, at the bottom (I wanted to make sure I had the angle correct with the casters).  I marked my cuts and then used the miter on 8 degree angle to cut the bottom of the ladder exactly, then screwed in the casters (pilot drilled for them first).  The caster screws are great, because you can adjust them a little bit for the height.  Hubs used a wrench to get them perfectly (it was a little difficult to screw them, but we just worked on it till it was right).   Here are the marks for the top wheels: 

Ahhh.  Now for the stain.  I put the whole ladder on saw horses in the garage and mixed up 1-to-1 mix of Weathered Oak and Early American.  I tried it on some scrap first, and it was a perfect rustic blend for my taste.  I painted on one coat, wiping it down after I did a section. After that dried, I did two coats of poly, sanding with a fine-grit sanding sponge after each coat. I learned my lesson using rougher grit sand paper on poly (takes off the stain and poly altogether), and those sanding sponges really are the best–just smooths it out nicely! I got mine from Menards. I stained the ladder with the hardware on it, just worked around it.  This was really my best stain job ever, if I do say so myself.  I just took my time, which I can sometimes have a problem doing! 

Here you can see some small imperfections, but that made it more rustic and I loved it!

Finally time to hang it!  I will say–with more space, I might have increased the angle from 8 degrees to 15 for more tilt–however, the hardware came with some handy knobs that attach onto of the ladder and make the wheel mechanism very secure, making it easy to roll, and more difficult to detach.  I hope this inspires you to try to build this, or something else you’ve always dreamed of!  If I can do it, you can do it! For my bookshelf tutorial, see this post.