Overkill? I think not.
I’m pretty sure it was one of my first pins on Pinterest, like, 2 years ago. An old ladder to hold blankets?!? Genius! It wasn’t a project in the forefront of my mind, but it was always lurking. I had my dad on the lookout for ladders left roadside, I would casually browse for them at yard sales and thrift stores, but I never found the right one at the right price.
Now, here we are, a few years later and my mom has found a great antiques dealer near her, Arnold’s Antiques based out of Williamston, MI. She picked up a set of awesome chairs for my parent’s new place that they customized for her and she’s always talking about the other great stuff they have. When she told us about them, John mentioned that he knew the family really well when he was in high school! How cool is that? So, I had my mom ask about getting a ladder for my long desired blanket rack. And wouldn’t you know, they had two! One for me and one for my sister. Sharing is caring people.
Sarah brought it down to us when we were at the cottage for July 4 weekend and I was geeked! It was so old and chippy and amazing. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it! Let me tell you, though, somehow my before pictures got deleted. And by somehow, I mean, I deleted them just this morning while clearing off my iPhone pictures. Fail. So, you’ll have to imagine what it looked like and what I did to it.
It was pretty dark and since I’m trying to lighten up the living room, I knew I wanted to paint it somehow without taking away the old look it had. It had a few different colors going on; some dark green, black, white, etc. I scraped the loose paint and sanded (by hand) the rough edges to avoid splintering.
I hadn’t ever white-washed anything before, so I thought this would be a good place to practice. I mixed up some white paint that I had in the basement with an equal amount of water and using a brush I worked in small sections painting on and then wiping off the excess until the whole ladder was done. I topped it with a coat of polyacrylic and voila!
Obsessed. It’s everything I had ever dreamed of. No more blankets scattered all about the living room and it’s beautiful! Win-win. Thank you, Arnold Antiques for selling me the ladder of my dreams and thanks, mom for doing the leg work! You should check them out if you’re ever in the area! The antique dealer, not my mom. That would be awkward.
Just one more…
I really don’t know why it took me so long!
How do you store your blankets? Do you have an over-abundance like us? You should see the closet…
