by Lucy Willemsen
Building rustic furniture is something that everyone can do and there is no such thing as a mistake, just wonderful discoveries and lots of room for creativity. There are no two pieces alike.
The first thing I encourage you to do is look at some of the rustic furniture books I have collected. Study the pictures closely and try to figure out how they were made. There are also some wonderful articles to read. I personally get very inspired when I look at these books as most people do. It gives you many ideas and shows you many things that you can incorporate into your creations.
To make a nice chair you would need to budget about six hours, this of course is a leisurely six hours. A bent willow chair would take a few days. After you have gone through the book and have a general idea of what you would like to do you need to search the forest for your wood, this is another adventure in itself. To build a chair to leave outside that will last a long time you would ideally use cedar.
Cedar usually grows in specific areas and when you find it you should do selective cutting. Please never cut a perfect tree! You can take the bend over and crowded trees and some that have died naturally. Another good wood to work with is alder or willow, it is used green and is great for bending. You can cut the perfect ones here as they just sprout up more suckers or new growth. You will find these growing in ditches or swamps. It does not last long exposed to the elements. If you do make furniture from this wood you can leave in indoors for the winter and then coat it with a linseed oil with about 25 percent turpentine mixed in. This should make it last a few more years outside, just put this mixture on periodically. Mind you, you will probably love it so much inside that you will leave it inside but regardless the linseed oil finish will bring out the colour and give it a rich colour.
You will see as you look through the books that anything can be used and put into your chairs. I love the use of all the wood that gets caught up in a stream, old weathered boards, driftwood, beaver chewed pieces of wood, even bits of old paddles.
Building rustic furniture is a very creative process and every piece is unique. Trying making your chair unique by
screwing one of your old running shoes to the back, call it your signature chair.....
You could even make a memory chair by incorporating little items that you have collected over the years.
Often your piece is inspired by the wood you collect. With just a couple of hours of instruction I will be able to show you the bare basics and hopefully you have all looked at this site and looked through all the books as well as collected a pile of wood, better too much as not enough. This will give you a head start. If you are collecting alder bring the whole tree back with a base of about two inches and smaller and clip off the side branches and throw them back it the swamp or ditch.
You will need a good half day to do this. For the really keen students perhaps we can do a few sessions or get some bigger projects going. Your huts could be outfitted with outdoor rustic dining tables and chairs and benches.
This is my bench made with bits of wood from an abandoned beaver house.
Here are some pictures of the progress of a beautiful chair that my 8 year old niece Meg built this summer (2002) with a bit of instruction, it took about six hours to complete. Her choice was peeled cedar which was a bit of extra work for her. This chair has a special place in her bedroom.
A job well done!
Here's a rustic checker board was made in the bush by sliced pieces of
alder and using a black marker to colour half of them.
The Windblown Readers Chair
Tools needed
- A least two cordless drills & extra batteries if possible
- Exacto knife
- hammer
- A nice little saw
- assortment of screws
- long good quality drill bit
- clippers
- surform rasp to clean up all the edges
- pencil, or use the edge of a screw to mark your piece of wood.
- tape measure
- books for inspiration
- camera