Slatted Patio Chair

Going into this I didn't really have much of a plan. I just knew that I wanted to make a slatted chair for my back patio. It was made entirely out of scraps and stuff I had on-hand.

I'm sorry, I didn't take super in depth pictures as I went.

The seat supports and legs are made from 2x10 cutoffs. I cut them out on the band saw and cleaned them up with the belt sander. Instead of finding the exact angle for the feet to sit flat on the ground, I just rounded them over with a router bit. Everything is held together with wood glue and screws.

I used 1x2" furring strips for the slats. I spaced them the thickness of a slat apart. I hadn't intended to use the shorter strips in back of the chair, but ran out of longer cutoffs just went with it. The runners in the back were 2x4s that I cut to a taper.

Sanding and painting was kind of a nightmare as you might imagine. Had I thought this whole build through, I would have painted everything flat before assembling, and used masking tape where the glue connections would be.

I love how funky this chair looks and it's pretty comfortable, too! It has become my reading chair in the evenings. The only issue is that the back legs aren't far enough back, so it has a tendency to tip backwards. This isn't an issue as long as it is against the wall, haha. I put plastic furniture feet on the back to keep from rubbing paint onto my siding. Considering I was making it up as I went, and it's make almost entirely out of cut-offs, I think it was a success.

View project on Instagram

This project was finished May 3, 2018.

Update: Since I used indoor paint that I had on-hand and it was sitting in direct sunlight, the connection between the legs and supports eventually failed after two years. Considering that it was an experiment I threw together out of scraps without a real plan, I'm okay with that. Now I have an excuse to make an even better chair to take its place!