Outdoor recreation with family or friends is a real holiday for those who live in the city. When arranging a country house or dacha, it is necessary not only to think over the interior decoration, but also to make the garden plot itself comfortable and cozy, because it is so nice to organize a picnic for your loved ones or just lie on a sun lounger with your favorite book. Garden furniture in this case is simply irreplaceable. It will make your stay pleasant and comfortable. You can make it yourself - it won’t require much effort and will save money.
Peculiarities
Country furniture carries the same functional load as the items in your apartment. You just have to take into account one important nuance: it must be not only functional, but also practical, since it will be used outdoors. It is this feature that determines the choice of materials for construction - they should not be afraid of water, sun and cold. Let's try to figure out which of the existing materials best meet these requirements.
The upholstered furniture that is in our apartments is undoubtedly more comfortable than solid wooden or metal structures. But placing such products outdoors is impractical. To sit comfortably on a country bench or sofa, simply prepare soft bases or pillows that can be easily removed into the house.
Metal furniture
Wrought iron elements can be used in any design and will look lovely among foliage or in an open space.
Clear and complete lines will become a beautiful harmonious completion of straight or winding paths, hidden or open corners of the garden. The charming swirls of metal jewelry will add special appeal.
Metal furniture is durable and not capricious, easily withstands all weather conditions, and is not afraid of even heavy loads. An elegant appearance will help decorate stone, brick, and wooden buildings and create the atmosphere of an ancient castle.
The disadvantages of such furniture will be the high cost of the products and too good thermal conductivity of the material. When exposed to the sun, the metal becomes hot, and when the temperature drops it will become scorching cold. Decorative pillows and blankets will help to cope with this problem.
Wooden furniture
This is a classic version of garden furniture that you can make yourself. Wood is a noble and practical option. It is suitable for making almost any item. Tables, chairs, benches and even garden sofas made of wood, with proper care, will serve you faithfully for a single year.
Even a novice craftsman can make a simple bench, but experts in their craft can turn an ordinary picnic table into a real work of art.
A simple garden sofa made of wooden beams.
This sofa can be made with basic power tools in less than 5 hours. Modern outdoor sofas can be quite expensive and unaffordable. This sofa is made from a wooden beam, a couple of boards and some pillows that were bought at IKEA , it turned out to be quite strong and beautiful. In the end, a gray stain was used to add color and it was advisable to cover the sofa with a special varnish for outdoor wooden furniture. All steps are demonstrated in detail in the video below.
Drawings and diagrams
Having decided on the material from which your furniture will be made, you need to think in advance where it will be located and what kind of items you want to make. After all, despite the fact that these are not apartments, you should still determine the optimal size and style for you.
Shop
The simplest and most traditional material here is wood. There are several simple schemes for country shops. You can make seats for them from either boards or solid wood. Based on the diagrams given, you can easily build a comfortable and practical bench or bench of the required size. After completing the assembly, do not forget to treat the wood with a preservative.
As for colors and design, it all depends on your imagination. You can leave clear, laconic lines or cut out graceful curves. The natural pattern of wood is an unchanging classic, so you can only cover it with varnish. But if your idea requires it, then you can easily give it any color.
The simplest version of a table is considered to be a product with four supports (legs) and a solid tabletop. By the way, it can be made from either boards or solid wood. A solid cut of a large tree looks very unusual, and the log itself can be sawn both along and across the trunk.
Often you can see solid tree stumps as a small table. The more impressive its size, the more intricate the pattern the “tabletop” itself will have. The choice of place where the table will be installed is also important. Make sure the surface is level. Otherwise, the tabletop will tilt or the table will wobble.
The base for a country table can also be made of metal - the product will be truly strong and durable. In addition, metal combines very well with wood and wickerwork. But a tabletop made of glass and other fragile materials is completely unsuitable in this case. Firstly, even small drops of rain will be immediately visible on it, and, secondly, it can break even from a slight mechanical impact.
Chaise lounge
It cannot be said that a chaise lounge is the most necessary piece of furniture in the country. But remember your vacation somewhere on the seashore and that pleasant feeling when you, relaxed, lay down on it and basked in the rays of the sun. Creating such an atmosphere at your dacha is a dream that can easily be made into reality.
Types of country furniture
There are such furniture options as stationary and portable models. For seasonal cottages, a portable model is suitable. The advantages of this choice are compactness, mobility, and light weight. After the summer season is closed, you can easily take them home with you. These are chairs, wicker furniture, tables.
The photo of garden furniture shows stationary models, for example, garden figures, or heavy, durable products.
Many people are stopped by the fear of doing something bad. With the help of step-by-step recommendations and individual expert advice, this can be avoided. The main thing is desire and free time.
How to collect?
In order to make the process of assembling garden furniture as easy as possible, we recommend stocking up on all the necessary tools in advance. Professional jigsaws and planes in stores are quite expensive, so if you plan to assemble one bench and settle down there, then it is not advisable to purchase them for personal use - ask your country neighbors or friends.
Beginners who are planning to master the manufacture of garden furniture should take into account that it is not always possible to do everything perfectly the first time. It is better to stock up on material for future use so that you can replace the damaged part immediately, rather than running to a hardware store.
The process of making furniture will be much easier if you find the necessary instructions or drawing in advance. Once you gain experience, you can easily improvise and create your own unique projects. But in the initial stages, it is better to stick to proven schemes.
Stylish garden chair made of timber.
Combined designs
Universal and stylish sets of garden furniture, created with your own hands or purchased in special stores, can be made from combined materials.
For this, supporting structures made of metal are used, and some surfaces are glass, plastic or made of other materials.
Wooden pallets are often used for hand-made furniture, and a set of garden furniture can be made from fallen trees.
Old benches and benches are suitable for arranging comfortable and practical swings, and home furniture, provided it is properly remodeled, can be installed in the garden.
Selection of timber
Which timber is optimal for creating furniture or household utensils? Whole, chamber drying.
Why him?
Using laminated veneer lumber will expose the glue seams, significantly degrading the appearance of your masterpiece. In addition, the price of glued material is at least twice as high as that of solid material.
Rattan furniture
A set of furniture made from tropical palm stems becomes the most attractive design option for gazebos and covered terraces.
Rattan garden furniture is perfect for decorating the most sophisticated recreation areas. Completely ecological raw materials, elegant appearance, and the respectability of natural wicker helped to gain the love and respect of thousands of owners of this unusual set.
But it is advisable to use such furniture design elements in enclosed spaces. Rattan is a very capricious material. He does not like temperature changes, active sunlight or large amounts of moisture.
Caring for elegant furniture will require periodic updating of the varnish and careful cleaning, and it must be used quite carefully, trying not to overload elegant objects.
The high price also does not increase the purchasing power of rattan furniture.
Preparing for work
Tools
Let's find out what tools you will need to make a table, stool or sofa from timber with your own hands:
Folding sofa bed made of timber and boards.
- Stationary or hand-held circular saw. Pay attention to the maximum cutting depth: for compact circular saws it often does not exceed 55-65 millimeters;
- Plane. Better - electric: it will greatly reduce the time spent on leveling the surface;
- Sander. It can be belt or vibration;
Even an inexpensive vibration sander will make your work much easier.
- At least three types of sandpaper - from medium to zero;
- Drill and brush attachment for it. It will be needed for the already mentioned operation - brushing. The brush should be made of brass-plated wire 0.3 millimeters thick;
- Wood drill with a diameter of 16 - 20 millimeters;
- High-quality brushes for staining and varnishing. The bristles of cheap brushes often remain in the varnish layer, spoiling the appearance of the surface.
Additional materials
In addition to the above, we will need:
- Stain;
- Wooden dowels with a diameter corresponding to the diameter of the drill;
- Wood glue (albumin, casein or bone);
- Varnish. If you are making a stool for a dry room, you can opt for polyurethane-based parquet varnish; a do-it-yourself outdoor bench made of timber is coated with a more moisture-resistant yacht varnish.
Leisure furniture: sofas and armchairs
Idea No. 7.
You can construct country sofas and armchairs yourself from
wooden pallets
. True, here you will definitely need to supplement them with soft pillows. And don’t forget to sand the pallets well, otherwise you can’t avoid splinters. And, of course, protect such furniture from moisture and rain.
Idea No. 8.
You can also build yourself an outdoor country chair
from concrete blocks
. However, we are not sure that this idea will appeal to anyone other than children. And sitting on a rock can be not only uncomfortable, but also cold. So, no matter how interesting the idea for country furniture is, take care of your health first.
Idea No. 9.
If you want to purchase leisure furniture that does not need to be hidden from rain and moisture and on which you can sit comfortably and safely, then opt for
garden chairs and sofas made of synthetic rattan
. Unlike other country furniture, they are practical, durable and do not require special care.
Idea No. 10.
Old furniture that you will no longer use in your apartment has a chance to be given a new life
with the help of a can of acrylic paint
. You can paint both plastic and wooden interior items in bright colors. Just be prepared for the fact that such painting is not at all durable and protect painted furniture from moisture and sunlight.
Idea No. 11.
If you want to buy bright furniture without worrying about its color, take a closer look at
artificial rattan
. It does not fade under the sun and can be of any color. For example, our collection includes garden furniture made of artificial rattan in green and white colors.
Carpentry lessons
Part connections
All structural parts are connected using glue with additional fixation with dowels. Such a connection is not much inferior in strength to self-tapping screws and differs favorably from them in that it does not force the caps to be masked.
Connecting wooden parts with dowels.
The assembly technology is not complicated:
- Glue is diluted in warm water. Before use, it is aged for 40-60 minutes;
Please note: casein glue must be used within three to four hours. After this period, it loses its stickiness, gradually thickening.
- Holes for dowels are marked and drilled in both parts. The total depth of the paired holes should be slightly greater than the length of the dowel;
- The dowels are lubricated with glue and placed in the holes on one of the parts;
- Both surfaces to be glued and the free parts of the dowels are coated with the thinnest possible layer of glue, after which the parts are connected and placed under pressure.
Attention: squeezed out glue must be removed from the surface of the product immediately. Once it sets, it will be almost impossible to clean it without scratching the surface.
Planing
There are a couple of subtleties when working with an electric planer.
- The knives should protrude beyond the ski by no more than 0.5 millimeters. It’s better to make a couple of extra passes than to ruin the part with a deep groove;
The smaller the layer removed in one pass, the higher the quality of the surface.
- The slower you move the plane over the surface, the less likely it is to get a “wave” from the knives on the planed timber.
Grinding
For rough sanding of wood, you can use not only sandpaper, but also a sanding mesh. It is better to grind only along the grain: with a transverse movement, a coarse abrasive will leave deep scratches that will take a long time to remove with fine-grained paper.
Brushing
This technology allows you to make a cabinet or table from timber with your own hands, giving them the appearance of old products with pronounced surface wear.
The procedure is as follows:
- We process the front surface of the part with a metal brush. The pressure on the brush should be minimal, and its movement should be as uniform as possible. This will remove the softest wood fibers; a relief texture will stand out on the timber;
- Then the stain is applied - in one or several layers until the desired tone is achieved;
- The next step is sanding with fine sandpaper. The pressure on the sander should be insignificant: our task is not to level the surface, but to grind off the texture protruding above it, highlighting it with color.
The photo shows the brushed surface of the ceiling beam.
Varnishing
The varnish is applied last, after the product is completely assembled. If you try to glue pre-varnished parts, the varnish will interfere with the adhesion of the glue to the wood, severely weakening the joints.
When varnishing, you should follow a few simple rules.
- The coating is applied in 5-6 thin layers with intermediate drying. There is no point in trying to varnish the surface with a thick layer in one go: the total drying time will not decrease, but will increase;
- If possible, the varnish is applied to the surface in a horizontal position. This will avoid drips;
- After drying the first layer of varnish, intermediate sanding with zero paper is required. Humidification raises the lint (fibers of the top layer of wood), which will make the surface rough to the touch.
Required materials and tools
In order to harmoniously fit garden furniture into the surrounding design, it is recommended to give preference to wood. Unique products are made from branches, twigs, logs and trunks. However, not only this material is suitable for self-production. When choosing the basics, you can show your imagination by trying to create unusual solutions for the site. When selecting raw materials for work, consider not only the overall style, but also practicality.
It is worth highlighting several popular materials for decorating a personal plot with furniture of your own production:
- Concrete blocks - you can use them to make a reliable table, which can later be easily covered with patterned tiles;
- Flexible tree branches are used to make attractive chairs, rocking chairs and tables. It is convenient to relax on them in the summer heat under a canopy;
- Metal bases – metal will provide high strength, which cannot be said about wood. It is difficult to work with such raw materials; it must be connected using bolts and anchors. Pipes made of steel or duralumin are used for work;
- Useful materials - home-made furniture can be easily made from leftover raw materials after renovation, as well as unnecessary things, at no extra cost. This includes pallets, tires, and wooden cable spools.
The choice of material will depend on the preferences of the owners: if you want to create original furniture, you should give preference to non-standard solutions. If strength is the main indicator, choose metal. The tools that will definitely come in handy are a jigsaw, a drill, a screwdriver, a tape measure, a simple pencil, a hammer, drills, and screwdrivers. To work with wood you need a plane, a chisel, and an ax. To work with metal, you will need a grinder with cutting discs. When all the necessary tools and materials have been selected, you can begin to create masterpieces.
Selection of materials
An original solution made from logs
Michelangelo could look at a block of stone for a long time and see a statue in it. So, a summer resident with imagination and hands from the “right place” will see a future masterpiece in almost any material: a stump can become a workbench, and an ordinary plastic box can become a chair. If you are going to build garden furniture from scrap materials, then set aside a corner on the site for storing the raw materials from which you will create in the future. Can be used:
- Boards, lining, cuttings of slats.
- Pieces of organic glass and triplex.
- Boxes and pallets.
- A variety of beautifully shaped driftwood and so on.
- Tires and tyres.
The most common material for furniture is wood. This is a natural environmentally friendly material. Using branches, trunks, roots and more will allow you to create a unique design that fits perfectly into the surrounding landscape. True, its main disadvantage is its short service life, which can be extended by treating the wood with special means.
Concrete blocks as a base, for example, for a table, will make it not only beautiful, but also durable.
Metal is also often used as a construction material for garden furniture. It is durable. But working with it is much more difficult than working with wood. The metal elements are connected to each other by bolts or welding. The latter option requires special equipment and certain skills.
The main thing is to see something unusual in simple things that surround you everywhere.
Photo gallery: ideas for making garden furniture from scrap materials
Comfortable bench with canopy
Original use of driftwood
Anyone can build a shop like this
Beautiful and comfortable chairs
Pallet swing
Original armchair made of branches
All the same pallets from which the large, roomy sofa is made
Even old belts can be used to create interesting furniture options
Beautiful and comfortable
Masters of wood carving create such unique masterpieces
Rest area made from pallets
Step-by-step instruction
The advantages of homemade garden furniture are its low cost, originality and replacement. If you get tired of the furniture over time, it is easy to replace it with new products created with your own hands. Among the popular models for the garden are the following types of furniture:
- Bench;
- Chaise longue;
- Sol;
- Furniture made from pallets;
- Wicker options.
To better understand how to make any of these items, it is worth considering the step-by-step assembly instructions. During the description of making garden furniture with your own hands, successful homemade products, photos and drawings will be presented below.
Bench
The simplest option for making a garden bench is to use wooden logs. Products made from such material add special coziness to a summer cottage, adding natural textures and colors. You can place the bench anywhere on the site: on the porch, in the gazebo, under trees, near bushes and even near a pond.
For independent production you will need 2 logs, one of which should be thicker than the other. Woodworking tools and thick bars are also needed. It is worth noting that the part used for the seat must be smooth. This is achieved using a milling machine. If it is not possible to use a machine, purchase a pre-rounded log.
Before you start creating a bench for your summer cottage, you should decide on its type. The bench may have a backrest, be round, made from a solid log, or have fixed seats.
This material proposes making a garden bench with a backrest. To do this, you should follow the algorithm of actions:
- Cut a thick log into logs and place them in the chosen location. The distance between them should not exceed 90 cm;
- The length of the blocks should be greater than the seat of the future bench. To do this, it is worth leaving gaps of 20 cm;
- Cut out recesses on the blocks for inserting the seat. To do this, it is worth measuring the diameter of a thin log and making the appropriate cuts;
- A thin log is sawed lengthwise into 2 long halves. One of them is attached to blocks, flat side up. This will be the seat;
- The bars are attached to the base of the blocks - their length will be the height of the back;
- The second part of a thin log is attached to the bars, forming the back.
At the end of the work, all parts of the bench are opened with protective varnish in several layers. To create decor, you can draw a picture on the seat yourself or involve children in such a fun activity.
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Arrangement of the garden using garden furniture
High-quality and modern garden furniture are comfortable and reliable designs with a long service life.
Many manufacturers offer a large selection of garden furniture, which can be installed in different areas on your site, carrying out effective work on landscaping and beautifully decorating the area:
- a courtyard or patio with a cozy seating area;
- open and closed terrace, area next to a pool or pond;
- in the garden, which is convenient for organizing holidays and events.
Comfortable and attractive in appearance, furniture from modern manufacturers or made by yourself will always attract attention.
For a complete set, you can choose a table and several chairs, benches or sofas, complementing the set with a practical canopy, a lounge chair or a hanging hammock.
