One of the top-visited posts on this blog is Bookcase with Library Ladders. My favorite bookcase featured there is this one:
From French Dressing in Australia.
During our trip to Arhaus last weekend, we saw another bookcase/cabinet that’s now the top “look” on our list:
It also comes as a “single” cabinet:
I like it mostly because I like the hardware:
Nice, huh? I think it’s from the Kensingon Collection, but I cannot find this cabinet online. Haunting eBay and Google images for hardware like this to retrofit some old bookcases will surely be on my to-do list now.
Also remember the post about Mismatched Dining Chairs and Tables? Well Arhaus does that too:
Here’s what I saw in the store:
You can find some of these pieces here at Arhaus.
I realized this post is titled library ladders, but I have not yet delivered. Got a bit sidetracked which happens when I think about Arhaus furniture! Here’s La Provence library with ladder from Baer’s:
But the ladder doesn’t have to match. See this one, found at tea and strumpets tumblr:
This ladder shown at Dwellers Without Decorators looks fixed, not rolling. Neat idea if you want to retrofit a ladder to a slim bookshelf where everything is in reach of the ladder:
According to A Passion for Home blog, this combo was once available at Home Decorators Outlet. Whoa, so it would have been very affordable. I cannot find anything like this at Home Decorators or their outlet now:
But of course IKEA always delivers affordable with the Billy bookcase and ladder add-on:
I would think there are ways to do an IKEA hack and add a fancier ladder. You can get cool old library ladders on eBay.
I can’t help but think these look suspiciously simple like Billy bookshelves, but in quite the decorative setting, found at Home Sweet Home:
Here’s a close-up of a secure ladder installation, from Elle Decor:
This ladder is actually in a kitchen with 13-foot tall ceilings, so they maximized height of storage space:
There are specialized blogs about every topic. Did you know there’s a blog focused on bookshelves? It will be published into a book, so you can put a book about bookshelves on your bookshelf. Anyway, this is my second post on library ladders and that’s enough and I must move onto other topics now. Keep an eye on that bookshelf blog — if there’s a unique bookshelf, it’s surely to be in that blog. Besides, I think I’m leaning toward cool hardware on a shelf, than a ladder now …
Do the ladders come with those book shelves or are the specialist library step ladders that you bought separately?
I am an architect interested in buying this ladder and need a contact or phone number.
please treat as urgent.
There are a bunch of ladders here and I’m not sure which you’re referring to. The sources of all the photos are linked — just click the link to find out how to contact the company with the ladder.
Didn’t understand the wedsite reference. You have on one of your pages is a cremone hardware and it looks like rust with a greyish white tint, looks really old. We are trying to find out where to get them from. I’ve got a customer that is wanting very interesting piece. Hopefully you can help me out with this.
Hi Shawna, I think the cremone bolts your referring to on this page are on a bookshelf from Arhaus.com, but it was available about 4 years ago. I am not sure if they still have it. If you need just cremone bolts, there are a lot of hardware sources that sell only the cremone bolts. Most are new looking, but maybe new cremone bolts could be treated to look old. I hope this helps. Deb