Ever enjoyed sitting in the shade of your back yard reading a novel, enjoying some iced tea and listening to your windchime remind you of the nice breeze? We all have done that at one time or another.
Maybe it's a porch at your beach cabin or maybe the view is a mountain across a green valley.
It is so nice we like to do it often.
At least for more than one season.
But there is a problem.
Storing lawn furniture is difficult.
Several chairs and a table with umbrella take up too much precious storage space so all of that comfortable and well loved furniture is usually left out in the elements so that couple years later your Adirondack chair, for instance, falls apart on you.
The reason is the wood.
Many wooden lawn chairs are make of woods that just don't last.
I guess this is done to keep the cost down in order to make a certain price point.
I have owned almost a dozen and the places where moisture accumulates, where the seat, arm uprights and legs are screwed together, start getting soft and soon you are left on the ground sitting amidst kindling.
My solution required some work, but I was motivated by fond memories of time spent drinking tea in the shade.
Funny how visions of idleness can keep you focused.
Now there are many plans available, and kits, but the more you can do yourself the less money you should have to spend.
Of course, if you are an expert standing in your own wood shop, you might be able to build something as simple as an Adirondack chair from scratch.
But for the rest of us here is an idea.
I bought an Adirondack chair from one of the large building supply mega-stores.
It came disassembled and in an easily stackable box (less of a storage problem don't you know).
I took all of the various pieces and used them for patterns in cutting, from treated wood, a couple duplicates.
The treated wood these days is less harmful to humans, but if sitting in a chair made of treated wood is a concern, tie-on cushions would take care of that problem.
The treated wood I used was a little sturdier than the original so I made allowances for the additional thickness.
These chairs aren't close-toleranced items anyway.
Nothing like a cabinet with drawers, for instance.
I then used brass screws (stainless would be good, but more expensive) to assemble the chairs.
If you want to make the chairs easier to disassemble and to reassemble, you can use screw-in fittings that then take countersunk machine screws.
Most hardware stores have them.
The finish is greenish, which works well in the intended setting, and these will just start getting that nice neutral gray patina in the amount of time it would take a chair made of "white wood" to rot away.