Thursday, August 2, 2012

Aging An Old Ladder

I am writing this in the wee hours of the morning, from my husbands hospital room.  He had a mild heart attack Tuesday night.  I took him to ER and they put him in ICU because of his past history. The next morning they took him to Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, MI.  I can't say enough about the excellent care here.  They were awesome when he had his big heart attack 8 years ago, and it's even better now.

He had a 90 - 95% blockage in the old stent.  Having a very small heart attack turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  If it had blocked any further, he could have had another massive heart attack.

We will be here for a few days.  I'm "sleeping" in his room tonight (yeah right).  We are wide awake right now, after some middle of the night procedure.  Ken's watching the Olympic gymnastics, so here I am.  I tackled this project last week, and just haven't had time to blog about it.  Hopefully my sleep deprived, middle of the night rambling won't be too garbled.

I love old ladders, especially the non-folding type.  So when I came across this one at a yard sale for $5 I snatched it up.  Someone had stained it a very dark brown that looked almost black, but I knew I could fix that.



 Look at that poor grass.  We have had some rain since then, and it is slowly greening up, but not fully yet.  I wanted the ladder to look more gray and worn.  It was already worn, but that stain had ruined any beautiful patina it had developed.

I love the look of this ladder from Mia's Interior.  In fact you should go see her blog.  It is breath taking!  But before you do that, just stick with me a minute ok?  Cause I really, really want to show you mine :)


First I brushed gray primer on the whole ladder.  My huge bucket of primer will probably last my lifetime, so you will hear me reference it a lot on this blog.  I just had Home Depot mix as much black tint in a 5 gallon bucket of Kilz as would fit.


After that dried, I used a cheap brush to dry brush on some white paint.  I just barely dipped the tip of my brush in the paint, then dabbed most of it off on the upturned lid,


 then dabbed even more off on a scrap of wood,


until my brush looked like this.


In the corners of the rungs, I used a very dry brush, after already painting a portion of the side rails, so I didn't get a build up of paint in the corners.


Here's what it looks like in the middle of the process.


I intended to use this in my craft room, but we will see.  It may end up in the office instead.  We've made a little more progress in the craft room.  The framing is finished.  I don't have pictures yet, or I would show you, even though it still just an ugly room.  At least it is now a room...well sort of.  You can still walk through the walls :)

I think I'm going to lay back down for a bit and see if I can sleep at all.  Night all.


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6 comments:

  1. I used to have that same ladder and I got rid of it when I moved - am I ever kicking myself now!!! lovely job xox

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  2. I'm so sorry to hear of your husband's heart attack. How frightening! It sounds like he's in good hands, and I'm wishing him and you both a good prognosis and speedy recovery.

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  3. Im so sorry. I hope he is doing well today?? how are you holding up?
    ~Tana

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  4. Sosorry to hear about your husband. Hope all goes well for both of you.

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  5. Hi Sis! We've been thinking of you. I'm sorry that Ken had to go through that but glad, as you are, that it was caught before it could be much worse. Looking forward to hearing from you. Let us know how things are going and if you need anything. I also have a chair for you that you might be blogging about someday! ;)

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    1. I'm sure I will be blogging about it! Can't wait to see it. We are doing fine except for being very tired. It's good to be home!

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