Breathe SKATE Life Into an Old Chair!

I'm a mum of a very enthusiastic skateboarder. I encourage it, but it doesn't mean I have to like the gear lying around the house, or the daily hazard of tripping over his board. Lets be honest, I'm simply just not as graceful as he is on the thing, and I don't bounce as well either.

So this is why I've come up with this chair! Not only is it a cool looking chair made out of his old retired skateboard decks, but it's also a super handy storage space for all the STUFF!

You will need:

A chair frame - I found this one of curbside collection. One man's trash and all that. Reduce, reuse, recycle! Just doing my part for the environment! ;) I did need to do some adjustments with some scrap wood I had lying around. Each chair frame is different though, so you may not need to do this. As long as it has cross bars you can screw into that's all that you need. You'll also need a section big enough at the back to screw the skateboard brackets onto, but again your chair frame may be fine, for mine I needed to widen it.

2 old skateboard decks - As I said, these are old decks that my son has upgraded from, they've also clearly been well used and loved. That just adds to the desired look!

1 set of old trucks - Wheels not required, these will just get in the way. :)

2 x Skateboard clips - I have designed these on Tinkercad especially for this project. Follow the link (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3917439) to Thingiverse to access the file and 3D print them. These are truly my favourite part of this whole chair! No more tripping over for me! haha plus...they look cool! You are free to use my design. You will need access to a 3D printer, if you don't have one yourself check out your local library as a lot are now providing these for public use, otherwise do a quick google search as there are plenty of places that will print your design for you.

A saw - Electric or handheld will work fine for cutting the decks in half. I skipped the gym and used a handsaw for this. Seriously check out my biceps now! ;)

Screws - to attach everything. I used a combination of screws I had in the shed. They need to be long enough to go through the boards and into the chair, so again just use what works for you. You'll also need some to attach the trucks and skateboard clips.

A screwdriver - to screw in the screws....obviously....I used my impact driver because...well doing the sawing was enough exercise for one day!

A drill - to drill the pilot holes so you don't crack the wood.

Resin or Varnish - this is for coating the decks to make everything smooth and comfortable to sit on.

Fabric - to make the bag to store your helmet and pads. It's amazing how much STUFF skateboarding requires, but safety comes first right! You'll also need a sewing machine, unless you feel like sewing by hand, in which case you'll need a needle and thread.

The first step is to remove the cushion from the chair. Put this aside, you don't need it anymore. Maybe sit on it while you're building so you don't have to sit on the concrete? Hey I'm here with all the great ideas! You're welcome! :) Take the trucks off the decks if they're still on there and keep 1 set.

Measure the chair and the length of the deck. Ensure cutting it in half will allow you to attach the deck to the chair frame. My chair allowed me to cut it directly in half however just double check your chair isn't too deep. If it is, that's ok, just cut the seat section longer and the back portion you can just attach higher. I've sat on many chairs that have a hole in the back where my bum goes, so there's no problem if you need to do this, just make sure your bum doesn't fall off the seat. :) Once you have the right measurement, mark it and saw it. As I said you can use an electric saw if you have one, however I used a handsaw.

After you've cut both decks in half, attach them to the seat frame as shown. As stated before, my chair needed bits of wood added across them to allow me to attach the decks. Just check your frame and see what works for yours.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3917439

Follow this link to 3D print these clips. If you don't have one, beg someone to print it for you. :)

I needed to attach another piece of wood to the underside of my chair to widen the space I wanted to attached my skateboard clips. I could have attached them to the vertical decorative parts of the chair, however I felt the spacing wasn't wide enough to hold the skateboard securely so I wanted to space them further apart. I measured the truck spacing on multiple skateboards and found if I positioned the clips 30cm apart on the outer edges this would allow most if not all boards to be able to be placed on this chair. Again, just measure the board/s you are likely to want to use it with and work out what works for you.

Now add the trucks underneath. Make sure you allow enough room to add the bag in the next step. I could only put 2 screws in the trucks instead of the 4 holes, but that's ok because that is strong enough for what we need.

This is really simple to make. just mark out the size of the bag you want. I measured the space between the trucks and the space between the bolts so I ended up with the slightly rectangular shape. I made the front and back edges slightly lower to allow space to get into the bag. I joined the edges, sewed them and added loops to hook over the bolts. You really can make this bag any size you like, just so long as it's big enough to fit the helmet and pads.

It's entirely up to you if you want to varnish the decks. I chose to because as I said, these decks are very well used, so they were scraped up pretty badly. I wanted to honour the life and love of these decks so I wanted the scrapes to show without the scratchy seating, so varnish it was! If you prefer you can sand the decks back, but I think that defeats the purpose of the shabby chic look we're going for.

Once you've done this and attached the bag you're done! Enjoy your new/recycled skateboard chair and most importantly enjoy no longer tripping over all the STUFF!