I have two of these old kiva ladders. They are popular in the Southwest and I like the look of them made out of logs and leather straps. I needed to use the 12′ ladder to help hang this ladder for the kitchen shelf and pot rack I had in mind.
I had a bit of trouble deciding how to connect the shelf to the ceiling. We had plenty of wood crosspieces in the ceiling to hang hooks for chain, but I was worried chain would sway too much under use. So I found threaded screw in rod holders and threaded rods that seemed to be more sturdy. I would have used iron pipes and iron pipe flanges but I couldn’t find a suitable angle piece to mount them from the pitched ceiling.
I found eye bolts that would hold the iron pipes under each side of the ladder. I used rod connectors to add the eye bolts to the ends of the rods. I cut the taller rods to make them even with the shorter ones. I had figured I wanted the ladder about 65 inches from the ceiling at the tall end and 45″ at the shorter end. With eye bolts all one size I ended up with an uneven ladder. So I exchanged two of the 8″ bolts for two 4″ and the sides were even.
I had the pipes to connect the front and the back pipes. So I threaded them together to create a large rectangle to hold up the ladder and its shelf.
With the side bars I supposed it would be the right height to hang pots from.
When the metal S hooks arrived to hang the pots, the cast iron pans hung down too low and Dave hit his head on them. I discovered I could use the space between the pipe and the ladder as a rack though. So I used the hooks to hang some utensils that are too large for a drawer.
I have several misplaced holes in the ceiling that have to be caulked and painted but the pot rack is finished.