Did you see our master bedroom reveal that we shared last week?
We love how well our sanded floors turned out and, given that we painted everything in it, we obviously love the colour, too. It changes from blue to green to greyish throughout the day and has a really warm yet calming feel about it.
We still need to add more finishing touches and I’d like a new chest of drawer (you can never have enough storage, right?) but it’s definitely starting to come together.
One of my favourite new additions is our new DIY copper towel ladder.
I admit that our bedroom usually isn’t this tidy and more often than not there are clothes strewn across the floor. Although we’ve not quite managed to conquer our bad habits just yet, our new DIY copper towel ladder definitely helps us keep the room tidier!
I’d originally planned on buying a wooden ladder but they were surprisingly expensive so, as usual, I wondered if it would be possible to DIY instead.
I was trying to work out how to build it out of wood when I thought why not make it out of copper instead! So that’s exactly what I did!
Building the ladder out of copper is actually really easy as there are countless copper connection parts available and it’s essentially just a matter of glueing some parts together!
This is what you will need to build a DIY copper towel ladder:
- 3 x 18mm 2.4m Copper Pipes
- 8 x 18mm Copper Equal Tee
- 4 x 18mm End caps
- Pipe Cutter (or a metal saw)
- Fine Wire Wool
- Superglue
- Optional: Silicone
This is how to build the DIY copper towel ladder:
1. Cut.
Start by cutting the pipe into pieces. The easiest way to do this is with a pipe cutter but you could just as easily use a metal saw to cut them. If you cut them with a saw, you’ll probably have to sand the edges as they can be very sharp!
You’ll need to cut your pipe into lots of shorter pieces that you can slot together using the t-shaped connectors. To build a ladder that’s the same size as the one we built you will need 4 x 420 mm, 6 x 335 mm, 2 x 400 mm and 2 x 300 mm pieces.
We only have a pipe cutter for thinner pipes so cut our copper pipe with a mitre saw. A pipe cutter would be easier and quicker, though.
2. Polish.
When you’ve cut the pieces give each of them a polish with some fine wire wool. This will remove any dirt, any writing that may be printed onto the pipe and will leave the copper nice and shiny.
3. Connect.
Now you can start to actually build the ladder.
Tip: It’s a good idea to test that everything will fit before glueing them together.
Just apply some super glue to the end of one of the pieces and slot it into a tee connector. Then add the next piece of pipe followed by another tee connector and so on until you’ve completed the first long side of the ladder.
We used the longer pieces of pipe (400 mm) at the bottom of the ladder and the shorter pieces (300 mm) at the top of the ladder.
Just continue slotting and glueing everything together. It’s a good idea to lay the DIY copper ladder down on a flat surface every now and then to check that the ladder isn’t warped. The last step is to glue the little caps to each end of the ladder.
As you can see, this is a super simple and quick project to complete and you can make it any size you want to suit your home!
4. Silicone
We were worried that the DIY copper towel ladder might scratch our wall or, because the copper is so smooth, slip on the floor or wall. That’s why we decided to add a couple of blobs of clear silicone to the ends of our ladder. The silicone is invisible when the ladder is up against the wall and it gives the ends a tiny bit of grip and stops the ladder slipping.
We used 18 mm copper pipe and I wouldn’t recommend using thinner pipes as I think the ladder might be too flimsy – especially if you decide to build a larger version than we did!
How do you keep your bedroom tidy? Do you always make your bed (I won’t tell anyone if you don’t)? Do all of your clothes end up in a big pile on the floor or do you fold them into tidy stacks?
Ladder looks great as does your bedroom reveal.
This ladder idea could also be used on your balcony for climbers, just leave more space
where bottom rung should be. Criss cross fishing line between rungs and your plants
have invisible support to cling on to.
Smaller/thinner pipes could do the same for your indoor houseplant collection.
I’m desperately short of room in my kitchen and now working on ideas to turn your ladder
into a grid system to put on wall and support pans (pans for one don’t weigh much), and
anything else I can hang up.
Thank you, Lucy! I love the idea of using the ladder for plants to climb up. The copper would be perfect outside, too as it would turn lovely and green over time.
We’d thought about using a ladder in the kitchen for storage, too. I’d been thinking about hanging one horizontally from the ceiling and installing some kind of pulley system. Kind of like one of those old-fashioned clothes maidens but with a ladder. Our pans just aren’t pretty enough to display! ;)
Cx
This is an amazing idea, that ladder looks so nice, and much easier to fix together than faffing about with wood/nails.
Thank you, Sarah! It really was a super easy and quick thing to build!
Cx