100 Year Old Pantry - The Big Reveal

Thank you for your patience.

The time has finally come to open the French door and invite you into my pantry.

Before you can appreciate how far it's come, you may need a reminder of what it looked like when we bought our house.

And, here is what the pantry looks like now.

In comparison to the rest of my very modest sized home, our pantry is enormous.

The 10 foot ceiling provide room for the shelves to span well beyond my reach...which is why we decided to add a library ladder.

AND, I have a confession to make.  I am deathly afraid of heights.  Even being up on this ladder makes my heart race. 

This beautiful ladder was given to us for free.  You can find library ladders at flea markets or even on ebay, though they usually run anywhere from $800 on up.

My talented husband, sanded down the ladder and applied a Briwax in a dark brown finish. The Briwax is a stain and a wax and easily restores the beauty to old wood.

We bought the wheels,

the rollers, the rail and the brackets all from Van Dyke's Restorer's.

And, we installed them ourselves.  By 'ourselves', I really mean, I supervised my husband while he provided the manual labor.

We weren't able to get the angle of the ladder to come out more than about 2 1/2 feet so the steps are not level BUT it is still useable. 

Before the addition of the library ladder, the most impressive thing in our pantry were the walls...

which I hand painted thanks to the painted wall paper tutorial from Jones Designs.

And, just so I don't forget how lucky I am for not only my new library ladder but for everything I am blessed with and by, I gave my sterling silver Goodwill tray a makeover by adding chalkboard contact paper to it and this reminder...

And I am.

The Library Ladder Challenge

Installing a library ladder seems straightforward enough, after all, this isn't our first home improvement project.

You order the supplies...

You install those supplies

You clean up the mess your husband leaves behind from installing those supplies.

You admire the beautifully restored ladder that is about to be installed. 

Life is good until you realize there is one thing you didn't take into consideration.

Besides for the obvious, that this very tall and beautiful ladder needed to be cut down, to fit into our pantry {which will be revealed behind that French door soon enough}

What could we possibly failed to have considered?

Give me your best guess.