Better Homes and Gardens (Australia)
HOUSE SITTER
This cute chair pair will make your kids feel right at home!
Make the most basic of furniture into a decorative piece by building these house-shaped chairs. Using easily available and inexpensive materials, the project will help polish your routing skills which, once mastered, will take your DIY projects to the next level.
Here’s how
STEP 1 To make template to mark out sides, draw a 50mm grid 500 x 600mm in size on the 6mm MDF. Referring to the Chair side diagram (see opposite page), mark where the shape crosses the grid lines,
Components
ITEM SIZE
Sides 530 x 400 x 17mm Seat 260 x 300 x 17mm Back 155 x 300 x 17mm
Gather your supplies
• 900 x 600 x 6mm MDF
• 2400 x 1200 x 17mm plywood
• Undercoat
• Dulux semi gloss paint in Brera (aqua) and Monastic (purple)
You’ll also need Pencil; jigsaw; drill; various drill bits; sandpaper; 16 and 65mm screws; trimmer; flush trim bit; clamps; 5mm rounding over bit; sander; sandpaper; PVA glue; timber filler; painting equipment
MATERIAL plywood plywood plywood
then join these points to create the shape.
STEP 2 Cut out template using a jigsaw, taking care that the lines are straight. Drill starter holes in corners of windows to allow access for the jigsaw blade into these areas. Also mark out and drill position of screw holes for the seat and back as these will be used to hold the template on the plywood. Sand edges of template smooth.
STEP 3 Place template on plywood and trace the shape. Remove, then roughly cut out shape, keeping a few millimetres away from the drawn lines.
STEP 4 Screw template to plywood with 16mm screws so it matches drawn lines and turn over. Fit your trimmer with the flush trim bit and set the depth so the bearing on the bit will run along the template. Clamp work to the bench and run trimmer around the template to create clean edges on the side.
STEP 5 Switch the bit in the trimmer to the rounding over bit and set it to the correct depth. Use the trimmer on both faces of the side to round all the cut edges. Also round the long
It’s important to use your trimmer to suit the rotation of the bit. When trimming the outside of a piece, go in an anti-clockwise direction. When doing inside edges, such as the windows here, work in a clockwise direction.
edges of the seat and seat back. STEP 6 Use a sander to smooth faces of all components and remove cuing marks on the edges le by the trimmer. Hand sand edges where the sander won’t reach.
STEP 7 On inner face of side, draw line of top of seat, which is 280mm from the boom edge of the side. Spread glue on end of seat and bu into side so it meets marked line and the edge is 70mm from the front edge of the side. Predrill through holes in side into seat with a 3.5mm bit, then join using 65mm screws. Repeat to aach other side to other end of seat. STEP 8 Sit back between sides, leaving a gap of about 30mm to seat. Angle seat so top is about 30mm from vertical. Predrill through holes in side into seat and screw together.
STEP 9 Fill screw holes using timber filler. Allow to dry, then sand smooth and remove dust. Undercoat, then apply 2 coats of your selected paint colour. Let chair dry and lightly sand aer each coat.