How do you find a wooden ladder to reach up to the heights of a period property ceiling yet small enough to be stowed away in a secret cupboard? The answer is… to talk to Andrew Nebbett Designs!
For this project, answering that question was the most simple part of the challenge! The ladder needed to match perfectly with the oil finished walnut cupboard interiors and the antique satin brass hardware to match the cupboard door pulls. No easy feat, when producing a ladder: walnut would not usually be the first choice of wood for ladder construction due to the high number of knots throughout. However, the knowledge and skill of our craftsmen could overcome this too!
The beauty of walnut is in the rich internal veins making the grain vivid and striking, which is easy to see in the finished images of this project! Those same veins and knots, however, are the natural weak points in the wood. To be able to use solid walnut and not a veneer, our craftsmen searched high and low for the perfect lengths of walnut; scrutinising over 150 lengths at several timber merchants to find just four that were needed!
The sliding hooks were designed to allow a library ladder, short enough to be stowed in a cupboard, to extend to the height of the rail when in use. A sample of the existing cupboard fittings supplied to us, illustrated the exact finish the brass ladder hardware was required to be, which I think you will agree was certainly achieved. This, combined with the walnut ladder, fits seamlessly into the overall project!
