Blanket Ladder

My first big project is complete! I actually did this a few summers ago before we moved into our new house but I’m just now getting around to this blog thing. I had been wanting a blanket ladder for some time but hadn’t had a lot of luck finding any. Until I found a tutorial on Pinterest and thought maybe I could do this? I used a drill for this first time and did this all on my own! I’m so proud of me.

Now to be clear, I did not come up with this idea, I simply followed instructions I found from Shanty 2 Chic via Pinterest. Here is the link –> Blanket Ladder
They said it would only cost $10 to make and they were pretty close. The cost of the wood came out to $9.94. Since I didn’t have any stain on hand at the time I bought a small can which was around $5 I think. And then I had to buy 2 1/2 inch pocket screws which really threw me into a frenzy of how to drill a pocket hole and what is a Kreg Jig and why is it so darn expensive?
Well let the internet tell you that you need a fancy tool to drill pocket holes if you want but I said “no!” to the Internet and my blanket ladder turned out just fine. No but seriously, this method worked for this project but you might actually need the fancy tool if you’re drilling pocket holes on a bigger more complex project like a table.

So to start I went to our local Home Depot and got the wood. 2 2x4x8’s at 60″ and 1 2x6x8 cut into 17″ pieces. That yields 4 pieces and a little bit leftover. The lovely people at Home Depot did all of the cutting for me for free!
So the first thing I did when I got home was google search “can I make pocket holes without a Kreg Jig??” and whatdoyaknow, there are other people out there as cheap as me. Thanks to Mom In Music City I had some basic instructions.

So I started off by drilling 2 little pilot holes. I don’t remember what size drill bit I used for these but I know it was smaller than what I used to drill the actual pocket holes.

Hold the drill at about a 45 degree angle. I drilled until the bit broke through the end of the wood and I tried to make sure the drill bit exited at about the middle of the piece of wood, width wise.

Wouldyajustlookatit! I would totally use this method again.

Now here’s how you know I had never used a drill before 🙈 So when I got the drill bit through the wood, to get it back out I would just pull/wiggle the drill back until it came out. Well in case you have never used a drill either that is not the correct way to do it. There is actually a button that reverses the direction of the drill and get the bit out of the wood. I learned the hard way. Luckily hubby wasn’t mad and the replacement was less than $5 at Lowes. And everyone I know got a good laugh at my expense.

Once all the holes are drilled on the “rungs” of the ladder you’ll line them up and drill them into the sides.
This is what you get when that’s done.
Here’s an up close look at those pocket holes with the pocket screws. (Not too shabby eh?) Once you get one side done just attach the other side and…