Wooden Ladder up-cycle

A couple of people have asked about the ladder bookshelf seen in a previous project post, so I decided to add it here.

When we bought our place in Seattle, we inherited a wooden extension ladder that I found in the rafters of the garage. It was more than a little wobbly and covered in 60+ years of paint drips. When our furniture was put into the container for the move to France, I clunked it in at the last minute thinking that I would finally get around to making something with it. It became my first project in France.

I re-glued, replaced wedges, and added a few screws, hand sanded, stained, and polyurethane it one sunny weekend. The next weekend I added stained-to-match shelf brackets and mounted it in the living room. The shelf currently holds 70 books and a few nick-knacks (walnut metronome that I rebuilt). We have had a couple offers to buy it when we leave France and two ladies that have asked me to make similar ones for their houses. I chock this up to another up-cycling success.