DIY Blanket Ladder and Entertainment System Curtains

A friend of mine has a blanket ladder and I immediately fell in love with the idea. I love fuzzy blankets, but I do not love them lying all over my house. I kept putting off the project because I didn't have a power drill. Hubs and I finally made the trip to Lowes and got our supplies:

• Power drill
• Bits
• Stain (espresso)
• Polyurethane
• Stain cloth
• Polyurethane brush
• Brown tipped wood screws
• Sanding block (120 on one side, 220 on the other)
• Two 2x2x8
• Floor protector pads

I had a Lowes employee cut the 2x2x8's down to five feet. Then I had him cut those two 3-foot long pieces in half. This left me with two five-foot long pieces and four 18-inch pieces. 

I went home and I sanded the wood with the 120 side first then the 220 side. Then I wiped them down with a cloth to remove the dust. I went out into my yard and stained three sides of the wood. I left that to dry in the sun (until it was no longer tacky to the touch). This only took 45 minutes or so during the heat of the day. Then I flipped it and stained the other side and waited for it to dry. This took a lot longer as I had to move the pieces into the garage. 

My excellent makeshift paperweights. 

Waiting for the fourth side to dry. 

I waited until the following day to put the ladder together. My husband and I determined where we wanted the ladder rungs to go (one run for every foot of ladder height) and drilled pilot holes. We lined up our ladder rung and slightly drilled into them through the leg of the ladder, then backed the screw out. We also drilled pilot holes in the rungs. Then we put the rung back and screwed it all together.

The final rung was a bit of a bear. I tried to find the straightest 2x2x8s I could, but one of them had a slight bow at the bottom. I braced the side my husband was NOT drilling into and pulled the opposite leg tight so the rung sat flush aginst it. Then my husband screwed it all together with the drill. We had to back the screw out a couple of times before we managed to get it so there was no gap.

Almost done! I still needed to polyurethane it at this point.

I applied a layer of polyurethane to ensure no stain would come off on my blankets. I waited 24 hours before bringing the ladder into the house for use. I also put floor savers on the bottom of the ladder as well as on the back of the top part of the ladder legs to protect the wall. Here is the final product complete with blankets!

Those two baskets behind and next to it hide our internet cable. I ended up removing the blue box and sliding over the beige one so the blankets don't pile up on top of it. The blue box now hides our remotes and game controllers so my daughter will stop trying to get at their batteries. I assume this will last for all of a month before she figures out she can take the lid off of it.

Somebody wanted to help. 

Notice that grey bench sitting in front of the entertainment system? This has been a massive pet peeve of mine for awhile. We moved it there back in January when my daughter first started walking. She kept pushing the XBOX power button and ejecting the discs. The grey bench was meant to be a short-term solution until she lost interest in the XBOX. She never lost interest.

She is now tall enough to reach across the grey bench to mess with the XBOX. I also got hubs a PS4 for his birthday back in March, so now we have even more electronics that entice her. I decided maybe out of sight, out of mind would work better in this scenario. Plus, I could put my bench back where it belongs rather than in the middle of the entertainment system.

I bought am expandable tension rod and an 18'X44' piece of fabric. I cut the fabric it in half so I now had two 9'X44' pieces. Then I hemmed the short sides. Next, I folded over the top about 1.5-2' and sewed it. This part would hang from the tension rod. Next, I measured the gap on the entertainment system to see how long I wanted the curtains. I wanted them to hand down slightly past the opening. This ended up being 6.5'. After carefully measuring and pinning the bottom of my curtains so they were the same length all the way across, I sewed the edges.

I pulled the curtains onto the rod and expanded it so that it fit tightly into the entertainment system. I arranged the curtains how I wanted them. Voila. My daughter no longer messes with the XBOX and the bench is back where it belongs. Again, this solution will most likely not last long, but I don't care. For now, it is a win.