Easy Pallet Blanket Ladder

Fess up. You have blankets all over the place, don’t you. I did too! I’m not even kidding you when I tell you how much I hate when my blankets have no home. They hadn’t had a home until this adorable pallet blanket ladder came to mind. I won’t tell you it took us 5 minutes to make it, but it was quick and easy, and under a half hour.

 

We made this to hold 2 blankets (or 3 if my kiddo has his blanket downstairs), and I wanted it to just look rustic and perfectly imperfect. I rooted through our scrap wood piles and found a few pieces of pallet wood Andrew had taken off a pallet, and some rough cut pine. I literally laid out different lengths and widths, and played with how I wanted them to look, and the measurements below are what I ended up with. You can always make yours longer and include more rungs for blankets, and have it be whatever you like!

First things first. Dismantle your pallet if it’s still together.

Have you ever taken apart a pallet? You’ll want to find yourself one and take the thing apart, so you can harvest the goodness.

You can do this in a few different ways: a sawzall, circular saw, or brute force. A sawzall will cut through the nails that are impossible to deal with (this is the best option). If you go with a circular saw, you can just cut the top of the pallet off at the supports (this is OK if you’re not trying to keep all the wood), or just go in an rip the thing apart with a crowbar and hammer and brute force. Andrew actually uses a home made device he made from a repurposed shovel handle and a crowbar looking thing. The nails on these things are impossible, so if you can save yourself the angst, just cut the thang.

Once you have your pallet ready, you’re going to need some supplies.

Pallet Blanket Ladder Supplies:

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pallet wood (more on this below)
rough cut pine  (3/4″ x 2″ x 50″ long) – cut 2
table saw
staple or nail gun
2″ 18 ga staples
Gorilla wood glue
sanding sponge
Minwax ‘Early American’ stain
paint brush




Do NOT go all perfectionist on this project, ok? I find when I’m trying to be perfect, it ends up looking like a craft fail, so just mess around with an arrangement until you dig what you’ve got.

Here’s the thing about the pallet wood…

For this ladder, you need wood for 4 rungs. You’re going to eventually rip the wood in half, so at minimum you’ll need 2 pieces, 18″ or longer. The wood on these pallets varies greatly, so if you have a piece where you like only one half of the wood, you’ll need an extra piece to cut from. If you have 2 pieces that are at least 18″ long, and you love all of it, that will be plenty. We used 3 pieces cut in half and mixed/matched among them. It’s all in what you like the look of. Examine that pallet and see what you’ve got. Once you’ve decided, lay them out and make a note of which pieces you like and what you’re scrapping.

Cut the pine.

Measure the pine to 50″ – or longer, it all depends on how tall you want the ladder. Ours here is 50″. Cut two pieces with your trusty table or circular saw. Rip the width to 2″ on each piece.Sand the ends.

Cut the pallet rungs. Here’s where the fun begins…

Lay the pine strips on the floor and space them 18″ apart.

Take your pallet pieces and mark them to 18″ in length.

Cut them! Sand the ends and edges.

Rip the pallets.

The pallets as-is are pretty wide, so you’ll want to rip them in half. Now, you don’t have to be exactly in half. With my rungs, I didn’t even measure, I just laid them out, marked them somewhat in the center, and that was that.

I didn’t measure, because I was going for the rustic look. If you wish to measure, you certainly can, I will not judge your desire for perfection.

Some rungs are wide, some are a little skinnier. And I love that. 

Rip those pieces, and gently sand the edges.

Lay out the pallet rungs.

Lay your rungs you just cut across the pine, in however far apart you like. The top and bottom run are really just decorative, so I picked my favorite 2 pieces for those. I put the top rung about 2″ down, and the bottom rung about 4″ up from the bottom. And the literally just put the remaining two in the center and eyeballed their location. I’ll save you the agony, and tell you that…

Rung 1: 3″ down
Rung 2 and 3: 9″ apart
Rung 4: 12″

Attach the rungs.

Add some wood glue to both the rung and pine, put them together, making sure to meet the edges. Do this for all your pieces. Then go back from the top and nail the pallet pieces. This wood is insanely hard, so some of the nails may not fully sink in, but that’s ok – hammer them down flat. The more imperfect, the better.

Finish up.

Once your ladder is dry, you can go ahead and stain the pine pieces to your liking – I chose Early American, and it’s so perfect!

 

After it’s dry, go ahead and put your blankets on it!

I love pallet projects, and this one is so simple, I hope you give it a try!  As always, I love when you share and pin my projects, so please go for it! Don’t forget to share what you make with me over on my Facebook!

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