If the sun is shining and you can get outside in your T-shirt, there’s nothing nicer than lounging around on your own outdoor sofa. Make it yourself, exactly as you want it to be, with help from complete instructions and clear diagrams. It’s not so difficult to make your own outdoor sofa…
Make your own sofa. Yourself
It might seem surprising with our climate, that anyone with a garden, terrace or patio would want to lounge around outside. But actually it’s not so crazy, there are enough days in the year when you might prefer to sit outside rather than in.
And what could be better than in such a cool, relaxed, corner sofa? Extra deep so that in a sleepy emergency you can lie on it, and with soft cushions to help you drift away on a dreamy sunny day…
DIY plans YelmoXL
Why build your own sofa?
Of course you can just go out and buy a sofa something like this, but you could also make it yourself. Everywhere on the internet you can find outdoor furniture made from scaffold planks. Nice, but they also have disadvantages.
Scaffold planks are no longer so cheap, and often aren’t scaffold planks! The demand is bigger than
the available supply. But the biggest drawback is the fact that scaffold plank furniture is almost always ungainly, bulky and unwieldy. And that is completely unnecessary for a sofa. You can also build a light and elegant sofa. One that you can easily move in- or out- of the sun.
Make a sofa from sheet or board material
The strength of a piece of furniture depends on its construction. With a good design, you can build a light but stable and comfortable sofa.
Our design is based on that principle. We use 18 mm thick sheet material for all parts. In this case a board that can cope with being used outside, therefore a waterproof plywood. This is available in all DIY stores and building stores.
A sofa that can be taken apart
We have designed the sofa so that it is made in component sections that ingeniously fit together (and can be taken apart again). Some individual parts are glued together with waterproof glue and the manual gives instructions on how best to do this.
As with many of our designs, with help from the instructions and diagrams, there are many possible ways to alter the design. And many of our customers have already done just that. So you could make a three-seater into a two-seater or a four-seater, or even into an armchair.
DIY plans YelmoXL
Making connections
The challenge is always to come up with a design where as much as possible is screwed together, but the screws themselves can be seen as little as possible, because screws are the easiest way to join things together. The premise is that a beginner must be able to make it, but it shouldn’t look like it has been made by a beginner.
The many pictures on our ‘Made it!’ pages show that this often succeeds very well.
Finally
A sofa is not complete without a matching table. Preferably one with some space, for all the food and drink. And preferably one in the same light style.
And that is provided. Which means in the furniture design plan of corner sofa Yelmo. So if you want the table then you should choose the corner sofa design.
Incidentally, using the drawings of the corner sofa and a little bit of puzzling, the normal (straight) sofa can be made without too much difficulty.
DIY plans YelmoXL