HOUSE sitter

Enhance a kid’s room with these new seating arrangements

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

1

To make a 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, then join these points to create the shape. 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. 3 Place template on plywood and trace the shape. Remove, then roughly cut out shape, keeping a few millimetres away from the drawn lines. 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. 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 edges of the seat and seat back. 6

Use a sander to smooth faces of all components and remove cutting marks on the edges left by the trimmer. Hand-sand edges where the sander won’t reach. 7

On inner face of side, draw line of top of seat, which is 280mm from the bottom edge of the side. Spread glue on end of seat and butt 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 attach other side

to other end of seat. 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. 9

Fill screw holes using timber filler. Allow to dry, then sand smooth and remove dust.

Undercoat, then apply two coats of your selected paint colour. Let chair dry and lightly sand after each coat.