The Anatomy of the Chair

LOL, I so rarely have proof of people reading my blog, I can't help but jump at the chance to respond. I have been asked about these chairs I made. I started out with Anna's kid's chair plans... 4 Dollar Stackable Chair I built one chair like this, but then I wasn't 100% pleased with those front legs. Then I saw one of Anna's Fan's post a Brag Blog with a chair that seemed to be a cross between the 4 Dollar Stackable Chair and the Clara Table leg style. I love the Clara Table, but the Stackable Chair just didn't match it. Plus, I was asked to build 10 of these chairs for my daughter's preschool. This meant I needed them to be super sturdy and safe for rowdy 4-6 year olds.

Here is the chair I came up with. The flash wouldn't go so this is not the best photo. The legs are made from 2x2s and the seat bottom, side aprons and back support are all made with 1x3s. The chair is 26 inches tall overall, and it is 15 inches from floor to top of the seat. These measurements came from the height requested by the preschool owner.

Front Legs - 2x2 - 14.5 inches long

Back Legs - 2x2 - 26 inches long

Front/Back Aprons and Back Supports - 1x3 - 9.5 inches long

Side Aprons - 1x3 - 10.25 inches long

And a total of 34 pocket screws - Wow!



I started by cutting all the pieces. The front legs are 14.5 inches long, the back legs are 26 inches tall, the front/back aprons and back support are 9.5 inches long, and the side aprons are 10.25 inches long. I like to use jigs and stop blocks to help me cut them all even. I have my miter saw on a stand and I clamped a board in place at the right distance out so that I would only need to set my wood in place and cut without needing to measure and mark each piece. This is such a time saver people!

In order to center (sort of center) my 1x3s to the middle of the legs I used a jig. I found a piece of wood that was 1/4 of the height of the 2x2 while it was laying on its side. Or at least close to 1/4 the height. Then I could lay my apron on the piece of scrap wood and thus centering it on the 2x2. I cut pocket screws into all the boards before assembly. That took HOURS. Mostly because I have an older drill who's batteries are just not holding a charge longer than a few hours of pocket whole drilling. Anyway, over the course of 2 nights I got that done. I screwed the front apron to the front 2 legs. So the pocket screws looked like this. I used 2 inch pocket screws. That may be too long, but I wanted to be sure they wouldn't budge or wiggle under squirmy kiddos.

I then attached the side aprons to the back legs. The tricky part was to create a jig to insure I was screwing the side aprons at the right height so the chair would be level. I think I took a spare leg and clamped it to the table and then laid the long legs next to it to mark where I needed to attach the aprons. Then I attached the 2 sides to the front set of legs/aprons.

They looked a big weird, but that was okay. At this point the 2 back legs did NOT have the back apron in place. This is because I wanted to be adjust things a bit and be sure of levelness before attaching it. This is where I made many mistakes and got VERY frustrated. I have a large drill. This is a small chair. Want to know what drill wouldn't fit into the bottom of the chair to screw in the last few screws. ACK! I ended up doing something where I took it apart a little so I could screw the back apron into the 2 back legs and THEN screwing them to the from legs. My drill DID fit the other direction since the chair is deeper than it is wide. FYI, the back apron is not centered in the 2x2s, but rather is tight to the inside of the legs. I did that so the back of the seat would be flush with the back of the apron. It just worked that way with the measurements.

The seat of the chair is made from 5, 1x3s at 12.5 inches wide. This would make the corners flush with the front legs, but in between the legs you would have an overlap because I centered the side aprons. I again used my router to round off the tops of the legs. I knew I would round over the seat and I didn't want a rounded edge of seat against a squared off leg. Just a personal preference. It worked because I like the way the top of the legs look.

I liked the look so that's why I did it that way. No particular reasons sometimes. Especially when I am building from scratch with no real plans, I just go with it until I like how it looks and feels. I again used the pocket screws and screwed the 5 pieces of the seat together. Anna's plans do not have them attached like this, but I like a more solid seat and not have gaps. I have a fear of bugs crawling through the gaps in the chair seat to get at my booty. Its not rational, but it is why I designed my chair this way. That is the beauty of having no solid plans.

The seat is not a perfect square. I cut out notches at the back so that it would wrap around the back legs and go over the back apron. I wanted to be able to screw the back of the chair to that back apron so I needed it to go back that far. I just used my jigsaw and cut out the notches and then used my palm router to round all the edges on top and bottom of the seat so there would be no rough corners or edges.

I then attached the back supports. I just sort of set them in using a scrap board for a jig to keep the spaces even. I don't know why, but I didn't want to do 4 screws on each of the back supports so I did 3. 2 would have let them rotate so I did 3. I flipped them so that the side with 2 was not on the same side for both supports. I filled them with stain-able putty and let them set before sanding them down and staining.

Hours of sanding, staining and finally shellac-ing and I have 10 little chairs ready to go to school. Tomorrow I have to finish the 3 tables which I doing using a cross between the Clara Table style and the support system of the Farmhouse Table of Anna's. I can't help but change every plan just a little.

I know this was WAY more information than just the dimensions, but I am proud of my little chairs. They were a challenge in many ways, but I learned a lot too. I made the chairs so sturdy, I can sit on the chair and lean back slightly and it doens't creak at all. I wasn't too rough with it, but these kids are 1/4 of my weight so if I can sit on them (and I do for tea parties with my daughter) then it can handle the kids.