Making a rocking chair with your own hands: manufacturing options, photos

Life and surrounding events fly by at breakneck speed. Often, before we know it, the week is over, the weekend has flown by, and it's time to start running again. How often do we dream of a cozy place in such moments, where we can retire and dream about the eternal? Or maybe you just need to sleep and read your favorite book, covered with a warm blanket, while feeling the swinging as if on a swing or hammock?

rocking chair design — A rocking chair is an original and beautiful part of home interior.

A rocking chair is an ideal option for this. It will be a great addition to the garden or the porch of the house, where you can bask in the warm rays of the sun and listen to the birds singing. The chair can also fit perfectly into the urban interior of an apartment - you can relax on it after a hard day at work and do your favorite thing: knitting, reading, watching movies.

wooden rocking chair — It is surprisingly comfortable to relax in it, read a book or indulge in sweet, addictive and enveloping laziness.

If a baby has appeared in your home, any mother will dream of a place where she can easily rock the baby and relax on her own. Such rocking chairs in stores are not cheap, and it is not always possible to find furniture that perfectly matches the interior of the room.

baby rocking chair — A rocking chair is an ideal way to create an atmosphere of comfort and tranquility.

An excellent option would be to make such a chair with your own hands. The advantages in this case are undeniable: you will be able to choose the right size, design, material and feel a huge sense of pride that you were able to create such beauty with your own hands.

rocking chairs — The unconditional advantage of a homemade rocking chair is that it suits your tastes.

If you have decided to make a rocking chair with your own hands, you must first consider the types and designs of products, familiarize yourself with the various materials from which such a process as making a chair will bring pleasure, and the features of working with these materials.

rocking chair comfortable — A simple wicker rocking chair will add a lot of comfort to your home.

Content

Types of rocking chairs
Rocking Chair Materials
The process of making a rocking chair
VIDEO: DIY Rocking Chair – 44 Ideas.
Rocking chair in the interior – 50 photo ideas:

Types of rocking chairs

Let's consider the main types of products:

Classic rocking chairs on regular runners — harmonize both in the Art Nouveau and classic styles. The manufacturing technology does not require extensive experience in furniture production, but the basics of practice must be present. The runners swing smoothly at a small radius, with strong swinging there is a risk of tipping over.

rocking chair modern — These chairs are made with a low seating position to provide a more stable position.

Rocking chairs on runners with bumpers. If a classic chair needs to be made with a medium (normal) seating height, it is recommended to equip the arcs with bumpers - the runners are designed so that the ends are bent in the opposite direction.

rocking chair by the fireplace — In this version, the arcs prevent the chair from tipping over, but getting up from the chair is uncomfortable and hard due to the presence of these bumpers.

Rocking chairs with elliptical arches - the chairs guarantee a soft gentle rocking, but with a large swing there is a risk of tipping over, because of this it is recommended to equip them with bumpers, as in the previous version. For garden plots, an option of elliptical rocking chairs with an awning is offered, with it tipping over is excluded.

Multifunctional rocking chair 3 in 1 - when seated, it looks like a standard chair for sitting flat, when reclined back, the runners go into rocking mode, and when reclined further, the chair turns into a lounger.

rocking chair 3 in 1 — However, visually such a chair looks bulky and the process of switching from one function to another is inconvenient, requiring sharp jerks of the body.

Having considered the main types of chairs, if you have no experience in furniture production, we recommend that you take a closer look at the classic version; making a rocking chair is not as difficult as it may seem.

soft rocking chair — Once you have decided on the model, it is important to decide on the materials.

Rocking Chair Materials

There are many materials from which you can make a chair. There are popular models that are most often used in the manufacture of rocking chairs.

Willow vine is an easy-to-produce material, looks beautiful on the finished product, the main disadvantage is intolerance to moisture, i.e. it is not recommended to install outdoors.
Rattan is a liana native to Southeast Asia, not inferior in beauty to willow materials, but not durable. When working with rattan, glue and special knitting are used - nails and screws cannot be used.
Forged metal is a durable and strong material, forged products are decorated with a variety of metal patterns. An exclusively outdoor version of a rocking chair.
Soft (leather) parts – there are rocking chairs made of plywood, covered with another material, for example, leather – they can be classified as strict office options;

office rocking chair — Some chairs can be easily transformed.

So, the most popular materials are rattan and willow. Let's try to understand their properties.

Rattan is a liana from the palm family, growing in a humid region, its structure is porous and moisture-resistant. Rattan is not afraid of rain and furniture made of it is often installed in garden plots and yards. Furniture made of this material is environmentally friendly, beautiful and comfortable. However, due to its porosity, the material can quickly fail, and repairing such furniture will cost half the cost of the product.

rattan chair — Its wood is very flexible and easy to process.

Willow is a tree we all know, the structure is uniform, therefore this material is less flexible compared to rattan. It is also not recommended to leave a willow chair in the rain, as the structure of the wood can swell and deteriorate. The porous structure of rattan does not allow you to use anything other than glue, so you have to fix the vines with special knots. It is also worth noting that willow material will be much cheaper than rattan.

willow rocking chair — When making willow furniture, craftsmen use self-tapping screws and special glue.

Now, knowing the main indicators of different types of wood, you can decide for yourself which material is closer to you and will suit you best.

willow chair — The variety of materials allows for the creation of a large number of excellent examples.

Making a rocking chair with your own hands, especially if this is your first such work, is easiest from plywood. As a first experience, we recommend using maple plywood, as it is a very hard material with high density and beautiful texture - pattern.

plywood chair — With this type of material, making a chair will bring you pure pleasure.

Let's consider the features of working with plywood. For the strength of the structure, three layers of plywood are used, and the middle one should be twice as thick as the outer ones, for example, if we need a total thickness of 20 mm, then we glue 5-10-5 mm, you need to glue with a special waterproof glue and you can additionally strengthen it with small nails.

Also, the structure of plywood allows you to develop unusual shapes. It is enough to draw the desired blank and cut it with a jigsaw. Also, when working with plywood, it is important to take into account that it must be impregnated with a water-polymer emulsion and varnish at least twice.

designer plywood chair — Such a product will be much stronger and more resistant to external influences.

Below we offer step-by-step instructions for consideration. how to make a rocking chair with your own hands. Let's consider 2 versions of chairs, for both we will use plywood as the main material. Before starting production, it is important to decide on the necessary equipment so that your work does not stop in the middle of the cycle due to the lack of some materials or tools. So, you will need:

Templates for frame parts;
Plywood boards and bars;
Jigsaw;
Reed threads;
Grinding machine;
Screws, small nails, self-tapping screws;
Sandpaper;
Drill – for drilling side holes;
Water-repellent impregnations, varnishes.

tools — Tools for making a rocking chair with your own hands.

The process of making a rocking chair

A rocking chair made by hand in a classic style with curved runners will be a great option for the first experience of making furniture. Also, wicker elements from reed will be used, which will create beautiful patterns and comfort when sitting.

DIY rocking chair — A rocking chair can easily be made at home.

So, we need 3-layer maple plywood, on which we will apply pre-created templates, and make the frame of the product. You can create a drawing of a rocking chair yourself or search the Internet for ready-made options for the form.

details — We cut out all the elements using a jigsaw and a grinder.

It is very important to carefully process the surface of all wooden elements, they should be smooth, without burrs and rough areas, therefore, in order for the templates to take the required form, they also need to be cleaned with sandpaper.

connection of parts — We connect the parts using screws.

Don't forget that the back and seat of our chair will be decorated with reed patterns, so we leave their central part empty. That is, we create only the frame from plywood. Along the entire perimeter of the resulting frame, we make small identical holes at a distance of 1.5-2 cm from each other.

frame — We will later attach reed threads to the holes.

After our base is ready, we begin working with the reed. We interlace it with threads vertically and horizontally across the entire surface of the seat, like weaving, and secure it with strong knots in the holes drilled earlier.

frame with weaving — We perform similar actions with the back of the product.

Once the product is formed, all wooden elements must be treated with a protective coating at least 2 times.

finished chair photo — After drying, secure with a double layer of varnish.

Let's consider another simple version of the original rocking chair made of plywood. The chair consists of two boomerang-shaped side panels and 14 cross guides from wall to wall.

rocking chair for a summer house — The chair is made of 15 mm thick plywood.

First, we draw 2 side panels of the chair using the template and carefully cut them out using a jigsaw. All edges of the side panel must be sanded with sandpaper.

plywood rocking chair — You should get 2 large "boomerangs".

Next, from the same 15 mm thick plywood, we make 14 rectangular strips 59 cm long and 6 cm thick. We will also saw small bars as supports, their length should be 5 cm.

frame assembly — We will glue the supports to the side walls with wood glue and, for reliability, we will secure each of the bars with a self-tapping screw.

chair assembly — We attach our guides to these supports also with self-tapping screws.

After completing all the above steps, we will have a ready frame for our rocking chair. We treat the sides of the chair with stain in two layers, you can start the second layer only after the first one has completely dried.

painting a chair — The ends of the side panels can then be varnished or painted with glossy paint.

All that's left is to decorate it. To do this, take soft pillows of the desired color or a small flexible mattress and attach it to the frame using ties. Soft elements can be either purchased in a store or made by yourself. For this, it is better to take natural fabric as upholstery and 5 cm thick foam rubber.

rocking chair with cushions — We cut out the required size piece from foam rubber and put the pre-sewn cover on it.

We are sure that making one rocking chair with your own hands will inspire you to conquer new heights, and you will want to make a similar or another rocking chair with your own hands for all family members, so that you can gather together on quiet cozy evenings and talk about the events that have happened and plans for the future, slowly rocking on the chairs you made yourself.

You can make such furniture according to individual sizes, including children's sizes for the youngest members of the family. Such evening or morning rocking creates a relaxing calming effect that is so necessary for a person in the modern world. Such chairs are environmentally friendly, as they are made of natural materials.

rocking chair made of wood — They are beautiful and can decorate your interior in your apartment, on your balcony or in your yard.

Most rockers do not require special care and can easily withstand cold temperatures. Some materials do not tolerate strong moisture, so you cannot leave such furniture outside for the winter.