Rustic DIY Blanket Ladder

Here’s how to make a simple rustic DIY blanket ladder:

Step 1: Buy a couple 1/4″ boards. I had our drywall guy pick them up while he was getting supplies for our sunroom roof, since we are lacking a truck. The boards came 8′ long and I ended up cutting them down to around 7′.

I also picked up some 1″ dowels at Lowe’s. Luckily, these come in smaller 3′ and 4′ lengths so they are easily transportable. I failed to take a raw materials picture (sorry).

My plan was for the ladder to be a little wider on the bottom, so I cut each dowel an inch bigger than the previous one. The top rung is 22″ wide, and the bottom is 26″ (5 rungs total).

After my cuts were made, I laid everything on the ground to get a general sense of how it would look:

Works for me!

Next was time to measure where the dowels would go.

I marked the center and drew a vertical line down the 1×4, then made a mark every 14″ where the dowels would go (and repeated on the second board, of course).

I then took a small drill bit and went straight through the board on each mark I had made, in order to mark the drilling locations for the final screws that would hold the dowels in.

Once I had my holes drilled, I used a 1″ wide spade bit to chisel out a hole for the dowel to fit into.

Within a few minutes, my holes were drilled and ready to go:

Be careful not to hollow it out all the way through… about 1/2″ deep should be good.

This next part required Brad’s help.

While one board was laying flat, I applied some wood glue to the dowel ends and nestled them into the holes I had just drilled. When the dowels were in, we carefully lined up the top board and did the same. To secure it into place, we used a rubber mallet to make sure the dowels had seated all the way.

Success!

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