If you’ve taken many photos of fabric, you may have noticed that there are two kinds of wrinkles: Those that look good in pictures, and those that don’t. I made this wood and leather storage ladder to combat the second kind. Even if you don’t need to store fabric, though, this versatile hanging storage ladder is useful for holding scarves, blankets, towels, or you could even use it for magazines or newspapers.
Once you start looking for it, you may notice that fabric plays a big role in a lot of picture styling, both here and elsewhere. A piece of fabric can really help soften what might otherwise be a stark scene. But when it sits folded up on a shelf, it tends to need ironing before use. Unfortunately the kind of fabric that looks good a bit wrinkly (linen), is very prone to wrinkles that look bad (linen). So inspired by this ladder, I made this wood and leather hanging storage ladder to combat that problem.
However, I ran into a hitch when I hung this up in the entry to my house to take this photo. It fit the spot so well and looked so good that I kind of decided to just keep it there. So I might have to make another solution for wrinkle-less fabric storage, oops.
Wood and Leather Hanging Storage Ladder
Materials
Four leather strips or straps (see first step for notes on length)
D-rings that fit your leather
3/4″-diameter dowels – I used two of these 48″ dowels.
Rivets – similar to these. You’ll need 22 rivets total.
Tools
Hammer
Rivet setter
Scissors
Pen
Pencil
Ruler
Saw
Leather hole punch, or X-acto knife will work for thinner leather
Steps
1. If necessary, cut your leather into strips with scissors. I started with a long piece of medium-thick upholstery-weight scrap leather 3 1/2″ wide, which I cut into 4 strips each 7/8″ wide and 51″ long. Four of these 48″ straps in the 3/4″ or 1″ width could work, or you could buy two of the 1 3/4″ width and cut them in half lengthwise (the most economical option).
2. To secure the leather strips around the D-rings, I placed the front piece of leather so that it was overhanging the back piece by about 1/2″, then folded it to the back. Then I punched a hole and put a rivet through all three layers of leather. If you’re using thicker leather straps, you’ll probably want to put a rivet through the leather above and below the bottom of the D-ring, without folding the leather.
3. Trim the back corners of the leather after it is riveted in place.
4. Cut the wood dowels to five 15″ legnths, and decide on their placement. I give my placement in the next step, but you may need to adjust if you are working with straps of different lengths than mine.
5. Punch holes and add rivets. I added the first rivet 8″ below the top one, then placed the next one 1 1/2″ below that for the top rung of the ladder. I placed the next rivet 8″ below the bottom-most one of the previous set, with another one 1 1/2″ below. I continued in this way for a total of five sets of rivets, repeating for both straps. Slide the dowels into the pockets created by the rivets.
