HOW TO MAKE AND HANG A WOODEN SWINGING SEAT

During the winter I built a free-standing pergola to replace our old worn-out one which was supporting a marvellous wisteria. When I decided to replace it, I thought it’d be a great idea to attach a swinging chair to it so I built it nice and chunky in preparation to hold a lot of weight. Now, 7 months later, I finally got around to making and attaching the swinging chair to hang off it.

It’s so simple but so effective that I’m very excited to share it with you.

This swinging seat build does have accompanying woodwork plans that illustrate and explain each step clearly and in a way that is easy to follow if you are a beginner. Exact measurements are included and there are plenty of illustrations. Check the plans out here if you’re interested.

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THE PLAN

The plan for this swinging seat was always going to be simple. I wanted something that looks nice, didn’t cost a fortune to build, was simple but also was sturdy and safe to use. I decided to give the arms a rustic ‘X’ detailing, similar to my pallet wood shed door, but leave the back and seats plainly slatted because I’m planning on adding cushions here anyway.

There are only two different wood sizes used which makes the build less complicated. The only electric tool needed is a drill which also makes it less complicated. I’m not a fan of using big power tools and try to avoid them as much as possible.  

I did want the back of the seat to slope to make it more comfortable and I decided that the easiest way to do that was to slope the cuts of the back frame wood pieces and then bolt those to the seat to make sure they weren’t going anywhere. This will make more sense further on.

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MATERIALS & TOOLS REQUIRED

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STEP 1: MAKING THE BASE OF THE SEAT

The base is made up of two parallel planks of wood, separated by 4 slats. Firstly, I pre-cut all the pieces ready for assembly. Then, I lined them up and screwed them together. The screws I used are very thick so it made life much easier to pre-drill the holes.

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STEP 2: MAKING THE ARMS

Making the arms is by far the most complicated part of the build. The first thing I did is pre-cut and assemble the arm frames. This part was easy.

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The next part was to cut the first piece for the decorative ‘x’ part of the arms. To mark the cuts, I laid a plank of wood across the arm frame in the position that I wanted it to fit and I drew a line where the wood needed to be cut.

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I made the cut and laid it back across again to mark the required cut at the other end. The first time I made this second cut, I realised I messed up my marking and the piece didn’t fit. I repeated the first cut using a new piece of wood and marked up the second part again, triple-checking it.

Once I cut this one, it fitted in perfectly. The power of paying attention, eh! Then I just did the same thing to the other arm, luckily without errors this time.

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It was time to actually attach this first ‘x’ piece. I used my massive screws to screw it from both sides of the arm frame.

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Then it was time for another tricky part which is cutting the opposing part of the ‘x’. This one is made up of two parts because they sit around the first one I attached. The method of marking is the same – I laid it in place, made a mark, cut it and then measured the next cut. I always did the measuring one step at a time to make sure everything was going to fit.   

Screwing these bits was a bit trickier. I screwed them from the outside of the frame as with the first ‘x’ part but also from the inside to the first ‘x’ plank using the small screws. 

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The final thing for arms was to cut and attach the arm tops. Technically, these can be attached at the end but I wanted to do it now for completeness. The wood used for the arm tops is wider thus the tops should be flush with the arms on the inside of the chair but hang over on the outside. I also made sure that the top adequately hung over the front and back of the arm to make sure that I could drill a hole through that part during the hanging process later. I just used small screws to attach these tops.

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STEP 3: ATTACHING THE ARMS TO THE FRAME

The idea of this woodwork plan is that the arms will sit tightly between the front and back of the seat frame. I manoeuvred them in and then tipped the seat to make it easier to screw those down. I then used the long screws to get these attached. If you’re following my plan, make sure the arms are on tight as the back will be getting bolted to them.

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STEP 4: MAKING THE BACK FRAME

The back frame is very simple and needs just a few pieces pre-cutting. As mentioned, I wanted to slope the back in a simple way. This required the side back pieces to be sloped at the bottom. I cut those very carefully to ensure that they slope at exactly the same angle.

Once the pieces were cut, I just screwed everything together.

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STEP 5: ATTACHING THE BACK FRAME TO THE SEAT

The back frame should slot in tightly between the arms, which it did. Once I wedged it in there, I marked a couple of spots on each side where I could bolt it to the arms. I wanted to bolt it instead of using screws to make sure it really was secure.

I used my drill to make the holes and bolted everything together. It was indeed solid.

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STEP 6: ATTACHING SEAT AND BACK SLATS

I firstly cut all the slats to their correct length. Then, I needed to cut a few fancy cuts for x3 of the slats: x2 to fit around the arms at the front and back of the seat and x1 to fit around the back frame. Once I got those out of the way, it was plain sailing screwing the rest down at regularly spaced intervals.

For the back slats, I made sure that the top one was level with the top of the back and the bottom one was level with the back plank running across at the bottom.

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STEP 7: HANGING THE SEAT

I decided to use rope instead of chains as I found this rope that has a loading capacity of 800kg which is way more than the chains I saw. This meant it was a little trickier to get everything level. 

To be able to hang the seat correctly on my own, I balanced it on a stand roughly where I wanted it to hang. I then drilled holes big enough for my eye bolts and attached the bolts to the seat and the pergola to which I am attaching the seat.

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I then drilled a hole big enough for the rope in the hangover bits of the arm rests. The idea is to pass the rope through these to help stabilise the seat.

My rope came as one big roll so I had to cut x4 equally long pieces off. I decided to cut 2.2m lengths as that would give me plenty of rope to knot. The rope I used is one of those thick polypropylene ropes and I had to use a sharp Stanley blade to cut through it. It is plastic so to stop the ends from fraying, I burned them with a lighter.

I then attached the rope tightly to the eye bolts in the pergola but only attached the rope to hold for a short while to the bolts in the seat. I then removed the stand from underneath the chair and let it hang. I used a level to make sure that the left and right ropes were identical lengths and that the front rope was slightly shorter than the back ropes to make the seat slightly slope backwards. 

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THE RESULT

The result is epic! The seat is holding sturdy and withheld me having a bit of a jump around on it during testing. 

It’s a big seat so the next steps are to get it stained to protect the wood and then to make some cushions for butt and back comfort – the idea was to have it as a bit of a snuggler rather than a small chair and snugglers need to be soft!

I can also now sort out the mess underneath the pergola which is a result of me building this new one some months ago. I’m still undecided on gravel or grass under there…