How nice is it to have a comfortable lounge sofa in the garden? So off to the store. But really nice lounge sofas are there! And then you will also see that it is just not the right size. So the question is: can you make your own lounge sofa, exactly the way you want it? Of course you can! It’s not that difficult. Below we list what you should pay attention to when building your own lounge sofa. If you are still in doubt, use one of our construction drawings, then it can’t go wrong.
Good reasons to make your own lounge sofa:
- Nice job: working with your hands and making something beautiful.
- You can make the sofa exactly to your ideal dimensions.
- Cheaper than a lounge sofa from the store. This may not apply to the cheapest lounge sofas, but they are either very bulky or made of cheap material that breaks quickly and/or becomes ugly. Not a sustainable choice!
- It’s easier than you think, even to make a really nice sofa.
- You can choose which type of wood you use and how you finish the sofa, for example transparent stain or lacquer in your favorite color.
- It is very satisfying: how cool is it to sit on your own homemade lounge sofa!
A word about scaffolding wood lounge sofas
A lot of outdoor furniture is still made from scaffolding wood, but we don’t participate in that. Why not? Well, scaffolding wood is no longer so cheap and often it is not even real scaffolding wood. However, it is always very coarse material, so you can’t work with it properly. So it is really only suitable for making bulky furniture – also literally, because scaffolding wood is very heavy. So you will never get that lounge sofa out of its place again. That can be done differently!
Conditions
Transport & storage: Do you want to store the lounge sofa in the winter, or are you still moving? Then make sure the lounge sofa does not become too heavy. Or make a lounge sofa that is easy to disassemble into a number of separate parts.
Pillows: Are you going to make custom cushions yourself, or do you have ready-made cushions in mind? In the latter case, those cushions partly determine the size of your sofa.
Table: Think about whether you want a matching table, and how much space it takes up.
Dimensions
This is where the big advantage of making your own starts: you can determine all dimensions yourself! For starters, the sizes depend on the space you have available and whether you want to use ready-made cushions. You can adjust the other sizes to your preferences. Are you very tall or quite short, do you like an upright seat or do you prefer to slouch? Do you want a higher seat height because it makes it easier to get up, and a deep bench so you can lie comfortably on it? It’s all possible.
The ideal sizes
Width: count on a width of about 60 cm per person.
Depth: the ideal seat depth is between 43 and 50 cm. Many people make their lounge sofa deeper to be able to lie comfortably on it. Remember that this is at the expense of seating comfort! And don’t forget to include the depth of the back cushions.
Seat height: This is, including seat cushions, between 35 and 40 cm.
Angle of the backrest: this varies between 95 (quite strict) and 110 degrees (very relaxed).
Construction
How do you make sure your lounge sofa doesn’t sag or wobble? To prevent sagging, you can choose heavier material, but you can also make extra legs. To make a piece of furniture solid, you need to make sure it is firmly bandaged. For example, look at how they have done that at a standard picnic table: there are always two slanted beams running from the legs to the top, so that the table is stable. In a cabinet, the back wall provides the bandage, even if it is very thin. So you can also get the sturdiness of a piece of furniture from the construction. With a good design, you build a light yet stable and comfortable lounge sofa. Just look at our lounge sofas Yelmo and Tejeda, both of which are made entirely of 18 mm sheet material.
Materials
A lounge sofa is outside and suffers from the weather. So choose waterproof material. This can be a water-resistant plywood such as okoumé or birch. Or, also beautiful: concrete plywood with its dark brown-red top layer. In all cases, painting must also be done. With a good paint for outside, of course. There is also so-called garden wood for sale that is weatherproof; The softer garden woods are usually already impregnated.
Making connections
The easiest and most sturdy way to make connections is with screws. If you want to make it completely water-resistant, you can use stainless steel screws, but regular screws usually suffice as well. Allen or torx screws are handy. Parts that no longer need to be taken apart can be glued together for extra strength. Of course, the glue must also be water-resistant.
How do you recognize a professional piece of furniture? Because you don’t see any screws anywhere. If you are going to paint your furniture in one color, you can first fill screw holes and then finish them. If you want to see the bare wood, you can make so-called plugs to mask the screw heads. Please note, in both cases it will be difficult to disassemble. The challenge for us is always to design furniture that can be screwed a lot, but where those screws are visible as little as possible.
Finishing
Above all, take enough time for proper preparation of the wood before finishing (lacquering, staining). Good sanding gives a nicer result and makes painting easier. A lesser-known but important phenomenon is so-called edge breaking: with sandpaper – or a router – you remove all the sharp edges from your material. This looks nicer, is more comfortable and extends the life of your paint! Pay close attention to the surfaces that need to be glued: they should not be varnished. Indicate them with pencil and/or tape them off with crepe tape.
You can find more information about finishing in our furniture maker tips .
Mount
Once all parts have been prepared and ‘cleaned’ (sanding, edge breaking) then there are two ways to take the next step. You can finish everything first (varnish, stain) or you can assemble everything first and then finish. If you are going to spray it is better to do the latter, but usually it is more convenient to finish all the loose parts first and then assemble them. Actually, the order is as follows: you assemble the furniture for the first time (without gluing) to check if everything fits properly, then you take everything apart again to finish the parts, after which you finally glue and screw the furniture together. Give the glue time to dry and then enjoy your homemade furniture!
Are you still hesitating?
Then buy one of our working drawings of lounge sofas.
– It saves you a lot of research
– You have the certainty of a solid construction
– You can easily customize the design.
– For the price of a pot of paint you get:
- Beautiful design and reliable construction
- A step-by-step plan with detailed working drawings
- Tips for material selection
- A list of required materials
- A cutting list (with the dimensions of all parts)
- A sawing plan (to efficiently remove the material from the plate)
- Explanation of how to make connections (e.g. screws, dowels)
- Explanation of the finish (lacquering, staining, etc.)
- Smart furniture maker tips.
