The Home Handyman's Guide - Footstools
by nigel on 15-Jan-2011
When you move into your apartment you may find that your removal company gives you a free footstool as a welcome gift, such as this one shown below:
After only a few months of moderate use, watching films, sport, documentaries and news on the TV, your footstool could well start to give way. The following show the classic symptoms of tape break and cardboard fatigue that no amount of parcel tape can really fix:
This article explains how you can build yourself a stylish and hard wearing replacement using only off cuts of wood from one of your previous projects, such as the bookshelf wall.
Using the 140mm x 20mm cross section pine that you stored under the bed cut 2 lengths of 400m length and 5 lengths of 300mm. For simple cutting tasks such as this a dining room chair makes an excellent workbench. Remember to smooth off the edges of the cuts.
After drilling pilot holes in various likely places:
Attach two short pieces (the uprights) to the two long pieces (the footstool top) using eight screws also left over from a previous project;
Attach two more short pieces (the feet), one to each upright, and this is the clever bit, using four screws which also fix the last short piece (the bottom bit) into place:
Finish it off by recycling the cushion from the old stool. You are now the proud owner of a hand built footstool that would not look out of place in any contemporary setting:
Tidy handyman will ensure that all the sawdust on the living room carpet is vacuumed up, even doing it themselves if necessary.
The project can be taken further by either painting or staining the footstool but you should be aware that this does take extra time and makes the apartment smell for days.
After only a few months of moderate use, watching films, sport, documentaries and news on the TV, your footstool could well start to give way. The following show the classic symptoms of tape break and cardboard fatigue that no amount of parcel tape can really fix:
This article explains how you can build yourself a stylish and hard wearing replacement using only off cuts of wood from one of your previous projects, such as the bookshelf wall.
Using the 140mm x 20mm cross section pine that you stored under the bed cut 2 lengths of 400m length and 5 lengths of 300mm. For simple cutting tasks such as this a dining room chair makes an excellent workbench. Remember to smooth off the edges of the cuts.
After drilling pilot holes in various likely places:
Attach two short pieces (the uprights) to the two long pieces (the footstool top) using eight screws also left over from a previous project;
Attach two more short pieces (the feet), one to each upright, and this is the clever bit, using four screws which also fix the last short piece (the bottom bit) into place:
Finish it off by recycling the cushion from the old stool. You are now the proud owner of a hand built footstool that would not look out of place in any contemporary setting:
Tidy handyman will ensure that all the sawdust on the living room carpet is vacuumed up, even doing it themselves if necessary.
The project can be taken further by either painting or staining the footstool but you should be aware that this does take extra time and makes the apartment smell for days.