Streetwear furniture it can have a very spectacular look, even if it is a very simple and easy to manufacture design. Woodworking techniques, proportional manipulation and beautiful textiles transform elementary pieces of furniture into fashionable and stylish sofas, tables, armchairs and benches.
You have the opportunity to save significantly by using dead wood lumber, as well as materials that have not been used for many years and have long lost their fresh appearance. Compositions for protective and decorative processing will hide all defects and turn your furniture into an exhibition copy of one of the furniture salons.
You can also easily bypass those stages of wood processing that require complex and expensive tools, such as a milling machine and a number of others, similar to it. Simple forms and elementary, but therefore no less durable compounds, be sure, will do their job, and you will be able to save hundreds of US dollars for the purchase of new salon furniture.
The author of this master class will tell you how to make a simple and stylish street sofa for a terrace or patio. And a number of simple methods of wood processing will allow you to save a natural tree for many years in its original form.
In order to make this outdoor sofa, you will need:
Materials:
1. pine boards and bars:
- 5 pcs x 40 x 150 x 550 mm - transverse frame parts;
- 2 pcs x 40 x 150 x 1800 mm - longitudinal details of the frame;
- 4 pcs x 40 x 150 x 550 mm - horizontal details of the sidewalls;
- 4 pcs x 40 x 150 x 800 mm - vertical details of the sidewalls;
- 40 x 150 x 1800 mm - frame part of the back;
- 4 pcs x 40 x 150 x 1800 mm - seat parts;
- 40 x 250 x 1800 mm - detail of the back;
- 6 pcs x 40 x 250 x 550 mm - details of the sidewalls.
2. glue for woodwork;
3. persistent oil paint of a dark shade;
4. polyurethane varnish;
5. furniture screws;
6. nails.
Instruments:
1. miter saw or jigsaw;
2. grinder;
3. electric drill;
4. sandpaper;
5. paint brushes and roller with a pallet;
6. building tape, ruler or square;
7. pencil.
Step One: Material Selection
The author used wood not of the first freshness. Usually this concept includes lumber made from dead wood or materials that have been stored for a long time and require pre-processing.
He used pine, which is one of the main types of wood in the production of outdoor furniture. However, more suitable lumber, although significantly more expensive, is obtained from hardwood. For example, all well-known oak. Its processing requires reliable and durable tools, but the furniture is obtained quality is much higher.
In order to purchase lumber from dead wood, you will have to make an order at a local sawmill. In supermarkets, as a rule, they can offer only wood of the first grade.
Wood is not the first freshness often remains from previous work and accumulates for months. Having driven it through the thicknesser, you can get great material. Processing lumber on a thicknessing machine can also be entrusted to professionals - on order.
Step two: marking parts and their manufacture
The good thing about this project is that you use materials standardized for the same size. All parts have the same thickness of 400 mm, and most of them have the same width of 150 mm. Exceptions are the casing elements of the back and sides of the sofa. They have a width of 250 mm.
It remains for you to take these parameters into account and carry out the marking based on the length of the parts. If possible, use a square and a pencil. The first makes it possible to draw strictly right angles, and the second - it is easy to correct errors using an eraser.
Saw boards into pieces of the required length. The author used a miter saw for this. This is very convenient, because you automatically get a right angle when cutting, and the parts fit snugly together. When using a jigsaw or any other tool, the joints will not be as neat as with a miter saw.
Step Three: Part Pretreatment
Although the thicknesser gives the lumber a fresh and neat look, the wood still needs to be polished. The manual belt sander, which has undeniable advantages over the orbital one when processing vast smooth surfaces, can easily cope with this task.
It is most convenient to carry out grinding at this stage, because you do not have to crawl under the sofa with the grinder in your hands when it is already assembled. However, this is not necessary. After the final assembly, you can process only those surfaces that are accessible to the eye. Moreover, if you make furniture for your own needs - not for sale.
Step Four: Build the Sofa
The design of this sofa is unusually simple, so there should not be any special problems. What you should be able to do one hundred percent is to work with a screwdriver and make accurate and high-quality pocket diagonal holes for furniture screws.
If you have not had to work with holes of this type before, do not be too lazy to practice. On sale there are special fixtures, which are equipped with a convenient lock and allow you to drill pocket holes without errors that are typical for manual work.
Identify the joints and make pocket holes so that you are not distracted by this operation each time.
Start the assembly with the sofa frame. It consists of seven parts: the rectangular frame itself and the transverse partitions. Connect all the parts together as shown in the photo.
Go to the sidewalls. Making them even easier. In order to add strength constructions, the author everywhere uses glue in those places where the parts are adjacent to each other and only then screws are screwed in order to pull them even more tightly to each other and fix.
The frame part for the backrest is ready and you can assemble a one-piece sofa frame. Do not forget about glue. If necessary, also use clamps to pre-fix the connection.
Lock the seat parts. For this, it is not necessary to use screws. Nails will fit perfectly. On this site, you can also use glue.
You just have to sew up the back and the sofa. For this, wider boards are used, so it will be difficult to mix them up, but still be on the lookout.
In addition, you can prepare a pair of longitudinal decorative overlays on the frontal plane of bylts. So you close the junction and get a finished image.
Step Five: Protective and decorative wood processing
If you make garden furniture, which will be open-air for a long period of the year, the protective and decorative processing of wood takes on special relevance.
The stain used should provide a stable and reliable coating that is immune to the effects of rain, nor to the effects of the scorching sun or frost.
Poor quality paint may peel and crack. Water-based paints are often subject to abrasion and leaching. Bad varnish is damaged by the slightest mechanical impact.
Therefore, use either your personally tested paints and varnishes, or products from well-known manufacturers. Practice proves that it is better not to save on protective and decorative products for wood processing, because the avaricious pays twice.
The author used oil paint for outdoor work. It can be called simply paint or enamel, but the essence of this does not change.
Paint the surface of the sofa two to three times with a break, according to the instructions. Typically, the drying time of each layer of oil paint ranges from 12-24 hours. Use a roller for painting flat surfaces and paint brushes for hard-to-reach spots.
Apply a couple of coats of varnish suitable for outdoor use. It must be compatible with the type of your paint. In this case, solvent-based varnishes are used in conjunction with oil paint.
A simple but effective sofa for a terrace or patio is ready to use and will last you for many years!
