Adirondack Chair Build on the Cheap!

As you may have guessed this is a chair build.

My wife stumbled across some plans for an adirondack chair and informed me that we were going to build some. I am a plumbing contractor and have many opportunities to get some excellent scrap lumber from new construction job sites that I work on. The 1X4 lumber I procured for this project was crate material used to protect fiberglass tub shower stalls during shipping. Each of the tubs come with five 60" pieces, two 72" pieces and one 30" piece. This gave me enough lumber to build a few chairs.

After Turning through the wood and selecting the most clear pieces without knots, twists, and bowes, we actually only had enough to build two very nice chairs. We also have a good pile of firewood leftover.

I started the project by cutting the nail holes and staples out of the ends of the wood and selecting the best material for the seat and the back of the chair. My wife was marking the lumber and I was cutting with the compound miter saw. It was a very hot day at 89 degrees so we tried to do this part as quickly as possible and move to the shade for assembly.

I modified the original plan slightly because I didn't have any 1X8 for the chair stringers, However the 1X4 Stringers only shortened the chair seat hight by 3-1/2 inches, which we both seemed to agree that would be fine.

Assembly of the chair takes about as long as cutting the lumber up. Start to finish we spent about an hour and a half to build two very nice chairs.

My wife was even getting into using the staple gun and really going to town on getting the arm rests secured. You gotta love a woman who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty and use some power tools! I certainly do.

I think the project turned out very nice, and we now have some more seating for hanging out in the back yard and spending some quality time together. Once we get the chairs sanded up and some stain or paint on them, they should last a long time and be a welcome addition to the patio.

Photo by Sydnee, our eight year old

All in all, a fabulous project that I enjoyed sharing with my wife. Two chairs and the total build cost, $15 for staples.

Plans courtesy of: http://www.ana-white.com. Ana White is an amazing designer that has a whole site of free plans to build all sorts of amazing projects.

Thanks for checking out my post. Have a good one! Q