One Room Challenge Week 6 | Installing a Climbing Wall for a Toddler

Okay, it’s not technically a climbing “wall,” it’s more of a climbing ladder, but still—it’s up and it’s awesome!

If you’re just joining us and wondering why anyone would install a ladder in their two year-old’s room, please see this post. Now that we have that out of the way, let me also explain why I’ve been MIA on my One Room Challenge posts. We had a few starts and stops over the last few weeks with this part of Benji’s room refresh and it’s been hard to figure out exactly what to share.

Supposedly, the Swedish climbing ladder we purchased can bear between 220 and 286 lbs without being secured to studs (the measurements make it pretty much impossible to secure to studs, so they give you mollies and drywall screws). But almost everyone who has reviewed this ladder on Amazon has come up with some way to secure it to studs, so it felt like we’d need to do the same to keep Benji safe.

Originally, I had planned to attach the climbing ladder to the wall using a 4’x8’ piece of 3/4” plywood that would itself be anchored to studs. I was going to paint the plywood the same color as the wall and hoped it would be barely noticeable. Unfortunately, after a little internet research, I learned it was a terrible idea to try to tie a 4’x8’ piece of plywood to the roof of our sedan. Evidently a single piece of plywood was likely to flop around up there, and I’m sure the sheet I was planning to use to protect the roof of our car from scratches would only have made the plywood more likely to slip off while we were driving.

This information set me back about a week as I tried to think through how to approach the problem. I considered renting a truck, but that felt like a waste of money. (U-Haul says you can rent a truck for $20, but if memory serves, it’s hard or impossible to actually get out of there spending that little.)

It had always been my plan to hire a handyman to install the ladder because I wanted to make sure that it was as safe as it possibly could be and my installations have a tendency to fall within a few hours (Denis is better at it than I am, but again, we both wanted the ladder to be incredibly secure).

But before I could hire a handyman, I knew I would have to have all the materials along with a clear understanding of how to install the ladder before the handyman came over, and I just wasn’t sure how to proceed.

After wandering around Home Depot for 20-30 minutes, I found an aisle in the lumber department with narrow pieces of wood and bought three pieces each of two different kinds of wood.

The first, which I should have known would be useless, was called Hobby Wood or Hobby Board, or something like that. The second wood was .75” x 2.5” poplar.

Fortunately, my in-laws came to visit a few days later and my very handy step-dad helped me understand how to proceed. He said the poplar was the way to go as the hobby board would do pretty much nothing and suggested I use 3” hex lag bolts instead of 3” deck screws to install the support wood into the studs. (I had no idea what lag bolts are, but I had read about someone else using them to install this beast of a ladder so it sounded like a good plan to me.)

I was so relieved to have his advice since he cares much more about Benji staying safe than an anonymous handyman, and then he made my day even better by volunteering to build and install the ladder.

While he and Denis built the ladder (It took about 1.5 hours just to assemble it), my mother-in-law and I painted the wood beams the same color as the wall and went to Home Depot to pick up the rest of the supplies we needed.

We ended up needing an extra piece of wood because one of the original pieces I bought had been partially sawed (like someone started to saw and then immediately changed their mind), so the integrity and strength of that piece was compromised (Don’t I sound like I know what I’m talking about?).

Benji woke up from his nap about an hour and a half into this project, but Denis put him to work “tightening” screws on the ladder with an Allen wrench. About every two minutes he would say “I’m helping.”

(Benji as he’s reminding us that’s he helping.)

After they finished building the ladder, Denis and his step-dad took it upstairs to install it. But while they were attaching the first support beam to the wall, they hit a snag. I wasn’t there for this part because I had gone downstairs to make dinner for Benji, but my understanding is that the guys didn’t drill the second hole deep enough, so when they put the lag bolt in and tried to tighten it, it wasn’t in far enough and Denis broke the bolt (with his massive strength, he’d like to add).

At that point, it was about one hour until Benji’s bedtime (and an hour and a half until our anniversary dinner reservations), so we paused the installation and cleaned up (we moved the ladder into our room to keep Benji’s space clean and calm). Because the in-laws were leaving early the next morning, we didn’t have a chance to finish while they were here, but I felt much more confident about hiring a handyman to finish the job now that I understood how the ladder needed to be installed.

Before I get to the details of how that went, I need to pause and explain what happened that night.

At dinner, Denis pointed out that he was surprised I was okay with Benji climbing such a tall ladder on his own, especially since we want him to be able to play in his room unsupervised.

To be honest, I hadn’t really processed how tall the ladder was when it was lying on the ground after it was built, or even once the guys stood it up against the wall in Benji’s room. The reality of the ladder’s 94 inches didn’t hit me until that moment.

I must have looked pretty shocked/terrified because after a minute or two, Denis told me he was worried people at the nearby tables were going to think he was breaking up with me based on the look on my face.

We had just spent $400 on this ladder and now that it was assembled we couldn’t return it. Should we install it somewhere else where Benji could only use it under supervision? But where?

I was so worried that I woke up at 2am, but when Denis saw me sitting up and I told him what was wrong, the freaking genius already had a solution. The ladder has two parts, a top half and a bottom half that are joined together; we could install just the top half of the ladder and put the bottom half away until Benji gets older. Brilliant! Freaking brilliant!

After that I was able to sleep soundly and wake up cheerful with the knowledge that I wouldn’t be responsible for my son becoming maimed, paralyzed or worse.

A few days later, a handyman came by and in less than one hour the climbing ladder was installed.

How cool is that!?!

But wait—it gets better… There’s a slide!

The original top of the ladder, for those of you who need a visual, should have been around the same height as the top of the window frame. Or, put another way, the top of the ladder now isn’t too much higher than where the middle of the ladder would have been… I’m SO glad we didn’t install the whole thing.

Okay, let’s talk through the details of how we installed this.

INSTALLATION:

First, our handyman (Andrew, who I’m pretty sure is 10 years younger than me) finished installing the wood beams. I asked if the bottom beam should sit even closer to the base of the ladder, but he told me that most of the load is carried higher up, so you want the beams higher. Good to know!

This was definitely a two-person job because there were two or three times where I needed to hold the ladder up while Andrew marked where things needed to go or while he drill into the support beams.

The silver pieces closer to the center of the beams are the 3” hex lag bolts with 1/4” flat washers.

The top right bolt is a little higher than the one on the left because it’s above the broken bolt. I filled in the hole with a little bit of Drydex putty and am going to touch that up with a bit of paint when I get to to the touch-ups phase of our refresh.

Here’s a close-up of the bolts and braces (Pardon the dirty foot prints in these pics—whoops!). The braces and drywall screws were provided by the manufacturer.

If we had installed the whole ladder, we would have used all three pieces of wood. The support beam that’s currently at the top would have actually been the middle support (Have I mentioned that the ladder is 94” tall when it’s fully assembled?). Because the ladder doesn’t come with enough brackets to attach it at three different points on each side, we bought 2” corner braces to supplement the originals.

During installation there was a bit of an issue with the drywall screws (those are the ones you see in the brackets/braces). A few were partly stripped already. Fortunately, our handyman had some spares, which he used when the ones from the box weren’t working.

I will say, I’m so, so glad I hired a handyman. The noise the drill made as he installed the lag bolts, and even the braces, was so loud, I was certain something was wrong. But nope, that’s evidently the sound of things being secured. I would have definitely stopped if I heard those noises, and probably would have told Denis to stop, too, if he’d been the one drilling.

Here’s what I would do differently if I were going to do this again:

• Sand the wood beams down a bit before painting them.

• Remove any rungs that get in the way of attaching to the support beam. (I suggested this to our handyman, to which he replied, “Oh, do those come out?” And then he promptly drilled the drywall screws in at an angle around the rungs. C’est la vie.)

I’m thinking about painting the hardware white when I do touchups around the rest of the room, but I haven’t decided yet. It could look better or it could look worse. What do you think?

We had tried to keep the ladder a secret from Benji, but obviously he saw it while he was helping build it. He kept asking what it was, and we told him it was something for his room. Here’s his reaction when he finally saw it installed:

Some of you may be wondering if we’ve had any safety incidents since it’s been installed. Yes. There was one the first night. We put the slide away before the bedtime routine since we figured it would be hard enough to focus on stories and sleep with the ladder alone. As I was getting his bed ready and Denis had stepped out after finishing his own part of the routine, Benji was hanging from the top of the ladder. I heard a thump and turned around to see Benji flat on the floor on his stomach and on the verge of tears. I held Benji and called Denis back. After about two minutes of tears, Benji sniffled and wanted to show his dad how he fell so he climbed back up the ladder to demonstrate what he had been doing.

Talk about getting right back on the horse!

Denis showed him how to make sure he wouldn’t fall again (how to push his feet out behind himself and get purchase on the ladder), while I put some pillows under the ladder in case it happened again. However, Benji quickly made a game of climbing up to the top of the ladder and hanging, then falling on the pillows. Not the behavior I was trying to encourage, so I put the pillows away.

We know the reason he fell was because his body was tired (it was already half past bedtime), and we tried to explain that to him. But Benji does not like listening to his body. He’s pretty confident that he should be in charge and that it should pretty much always be time to play and move around.

Now when he climbs the ladder, he sometimes says “Mama, keep me safe,” or “Dada, keep me safe.” At first we would come and spot him, but more and more we’re telling him that it’s his job to keep himself safe and then praising him when he gets himself back to a safe/secure spot on the ladder.

SUPPLIES:

• 3” Hex Lag Bolts

• 1/4” Flat Washers

• 3/4” x 2.5” x 34” Poplar Wood Board