Several years ago we bought a very old house, and suddenly our plastic porch furniture didn’t look so good. But having just bought the house (plus new furnace, hot water heater and refrigerator), the idea of buying new chairs didn’t look so good either. I found the answer walking on a beach.

A house in the dunes had these great looking Adirondack chairs scattered about in the sand. I later returned with a camera and sheets of paper for outlining the various shapes. When I got home, I made six chairs out of redwood, mostly for its resistance to rot. Its light weight turned out to be an added bonus – the chairs are very easy to move around. I also made three tables with oak tops. The chairs are painted with Old Village paint, which offers a nice range of historical colors, in this case Wild Bayberry. 

The chairs turned out to be amazingly comfortable, partly because of their general proportions, but also because the back has four slats. The even number means there’s a gap running up the center, leaving an open space for your spine to fit in. Adirondack chairs with a center slat are less easy on the bones.

Another advantage showed up when I stored the chairs for winter. They stack. Our shed is small, but a tower of chairs fits just fine.

Redwood seems hard to come by these days, so I’m glad I made the chairs when I did.

 

 

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