Here’s a quick, clever way to create simple shelving. Start with plain stepladders, give them a coat of paint, and then attach pre-made melamine shelves that you have cut to your desired length.
New Life for Ladders. You’ll find traditional wooden stepladders in several sizes at hardware stores and through online retailers. We chose two-foot-tall ladders for our shelves, but you could go taller for more storage.
To dress up your plain ladders, give them a coat of paint. You can brush or spray the paint on. Either way, be sure to mask off the metal hardware with painter’s tape. At this point, you should also brush paint onto the ends of the melamine shelves to hide the bare particleboard.
Attach corner brackets to the top step of each ladder – one on each side. The brackets come with screws that you can use for this purpose. Mount the top shelf by turning each ladder upside down and screwing the corner brackets to the shelf (inset).
Slide in the bottom shelf, and position it so the ends are even with the shelf above. This shelf can rest in place without screws.
This open shelving works great for spaces where you need easy access to the items that you want to store. The unconventional shelves are sure to be one of the highlights of your space.
