Make Yourself A Chair

(click on pictures to see enlarged views)

I’ve long wanted to Make a continuous arm bowback Windsor chair. I watch the YouTube videos about making a Windsor. I look at the different chair-making classes where one can learn the craft of Windsor chair making. But, for reasons unimportant here, I’ll probably never actually make a Windsor chair.

I’m okay with that because I have plenty of other creative things to occupy my remaining years. And besides that, I did once make a chair…

I built that Adirondack chair back in 2008. It was a satisfying little project, and it was such a pleasure to sit in a chair I made myself!

Oh sure, I could have bought a molded-plastic Adirondack chair made by the thousands in some far away factory. They are cheap and probably more practical, primarily because they don’t rot when left in the elements. But practical plastic chairs are an insult to my sensibilities.

As you can see, my 18-year-old chair is going the way of all wood. I placed it in its final resting place a few years ago. It has a nice view of the stream and small falls behind my home. I haven’t dared to sit in it for a long time. But, as I was taking these pictures, I was feeling brave and adventurous…

If you ever get a hankering to make something, an Adirondack chair is an excellent woodworking project. Like so many woodworking projects, it can be simple or complicated. The plans I followed are for a simple, comfortable-to-sit-in chair.

This is the little booklet with the plans I used. If you go to the Amazon link, you can see several chairs that look better than my old, weathered example.

After sitting in my aged chair (with my aged body) I thought to myself that someday I’d like to make another Adirondack chair.