The second option is distinguished by saving money, exclusive designs and a wide range of imagination.
Bar stools appeared on the market not so long ago, but have managed to become popular and in demand among owners of spacious kitchens or dining rooms, where in addition to the dining table there is also a bar counter. Most often, they are found in spacious private homes, where there is free space for their installation. If you are lucky enough to become the owner of such a home, then you should definitely place several original and exclusive chairs near the bar counter, which will become the main decoration of the room.
Advantages
The main advantages of making furniture items yourself include:
Saving money. Making a chair yourself will be two times cheaper than buying it in a store.- Pleasure from the work process. Most craftsmen like to come up with unique types of designs and design furniture items themselves. This will allow you not only to make unusual chairs, but also to show off your invention to your friends and loved ones .
- Wide selection of materials for manufacturing. Self-assembly of a bar stool will allow you to choose the materials for its manufacture, color scheme, dimensions and design.
More about height
It cannot be said about the sizes of bar stools that there are certain standards that must be adhered to when making them yourself. The product can be adjusted to a height that is convenient for each owner.
History does not mention the person who came up with such a design; the furniture appeared after partitions between visitors and staff began to be made more than a meter in height.
Drinking establishments approach the issue more scrupulously and adhere to one of two GOST standards.
When creating standards, the height of the bar counter was thought out over the years, based on the anatomical features of visitors, taking into account the following nuances:
- What position does the person take?
- Average buyer height.
- The impact of being a bartender.
Peculiarities
When it comes to design features, bar stools come in different shapes, designs, sizes and materials. Based on the types of structures, they are divided into models:
With a backrest.
This version has a height to the lower back. The backs of products can be hard or soft. Their shape can be varied: oval, square, with indentations. By equipping a chair with armrests, it becomes like an armchair.- No backrest. The simplest design. Most often, such models are called stools.
- Foldable. They are compact and ergonomic. They most often have height adjustment, and the back and legs can be moved apart.
Advice : if you are just starting to master the profession of a furniture maker, opt for a stool.
Preparation
First you need to understand that this design is nothing more than a rather high stool with a footrest. The principle of assembling a chair will be the same, no matter how you want it.
At Annihaus you can also buy original designer bar stools for your home. Large selection and short production times.
It can be very light or made of materials of quite impressive sizes. Such a chair can be made with both square and round legs, the essence of the assembly of the structure as a whole will not change.
The first step is to create the design of the future bar stool.
One of the important components of this design is the height of the chair legs. They should be of such a height that at least 30 centimeters remain on the bar countertop.
Choosing a wood species
You can make a bar stool from wood or metal. Metal structures are suitable for those who know how to work with a welding machine.
But almost anyone can assemble a wooden product, having little experience in carpentry and a great desire to make furniture with their own hands .
Furniture made from natural wood will bring a special atmosphere of home, warmth and comfort to the interior. It will delight owners not only with its environmental cleanliness, but also with interesting shades, textures and textures.
When choosing wood, there are several factors to consider. Namely, that by type the whole tree is divided into:
- Soft. These species include pine, birch, alder;
- Average. These are oak, cherry, beech;
- Solid. These include maple, exotic trees, and yew.
Attention : in addition to the strength of wood, it is also worth considering its resistance to moisture. Even hard varieties of trees do not always withstand increased moisture, and upon contact with it they swell and lose their original appearance.
Soft wood is the easiest to work with. But it does not have a long service life and high technical qualities. A chair made from soft varieties will serve its owners from 10 to 15 years . But this is the best option for beginners in carpentry. If you already have experience in assembling chairs yourself, it is better to use more expensive types of wood, for example, oak, beech, ash. Such chairs will serve you and your family for decades, and will delight you with their aesthetics and ease of use.
You can make a bar stool from different types of wood. The most popular and popular are:
Pine.
This is due to its affordable cost and flexibility in processing. Pine boards emit a pleasant and unobtrusive aroma of pine needles, which has a beneficial effect on the psyche and general well-being of people. In addition, pine has a unique light texture. A chair made from it will harmoniously fit into both classic and modern interiors .Working with pine is a real pleasure. It can be cut with both electric and hand tools. Another feature of this type of wood is that it does not harbor pests. By treating lumber with antiseptics, you can increase its resistance to moisture, and therefore extend the life of the furniture item.
- Birch. It is also an inexpensive lumber with good qualities. Birch has a light and interesting texture. It is easy to saw and cut with various tools, glues well together and can be painted over with paints and varnishes. Using any shade of stain, the lumber is given a different shade, which looks original and exclusive under the varnish coating. In terms of its technical characteristics, birch is very similar to beech, only it costs several times less.
Nut. This type of wood is elite .
Black walnut is especially valued because it is resistant to scratches, mechanical damage and other negative factors. This breed attracts woodworkers with its wide variety of shades. There are more than 10 types of walnut wood, which is suitable for making furniture items, including bar stools.The peculiarity of walnut is that when carving is applied to the legs or back of the product, chips and other minor defects do not form on it.
- Oak. This variety is characterized by high levels of durability, strength and resistance to negative factors. The shade of oak varies from light yellow to brown. Gray or greenish shades of wood are less common. Oak is easy to paint and varnish. This lumber dries quickly, does not crack or warp during use. But oak can be bent, cut and sanded quite easily with the most common electric tools.
- Beech. This wood is durable, strong and hard. At the same time, it is quite plastic and can be easily processed at home. The color of beech varies from pink-yellow to red-brown. This allows you to make original furniture with an interesting color scheme.
- Larch. These lumber have a beneficial effect on people. The color range of this lumber varies within 13 different shades.
Linden.
A fairly durable tree, which is distinguished by its plasticity and beautiful white color. It is good to make carvings on it, but painting linden is problematic. Pests are most likely to appear in this type of wood . Therefore, before manufacturing a piece of furniture, the material must be carefully treated with antiseptics and protective compounds.- Cherry. It is used in the manufacture of luxury furniture for classic interiors. Over the years, like nuts, cherries become darker. It is easy to process, paint and varnish. The carving on cherry furniture looks harmonious.
- Maple. This lumber is rarely used in the manufacture of furniture. If you have maple boards, then such a piece of furniture will delight you with its durability, resistance to negative factors and beauty.
What is needed to make a chair from a profile pipe
The process of making furniture with a steel frame based on a square or rectangular profile is not complicated or unusual; most of the operations are familiar to anyone who likes to do metalwork or homemade work in the garage.
Without a bending machine you won't be able to make a chair with an elegant design.
To work you will need:
- Semi-automatic welding. The equipment is quite heavy, so there is no point in taking it even for welding homemade folding chairs from a profile pipe. You can always come to a car service center or a locksmith shop, where they will do the work for a small fee;
- Angle machine - grinder with cutting wheels for metal;
- A set of clamps or stable supports, with their help individual pieces of metal are fixed before welding the seams;
- Sharpener with a “rough” stone for deburring;
- Electric drill with a series of drills;
- A bending machine or press where you bend curved parts before cutting the pipe and welding it. Typically this device weighs 10-15 kg, so you can rent a car or borrow it from friends for a couple of days.
For your information! In the case of a round pipe, the most difficult thing is to give the necessary bending and profiling.
Typically, first attempts to bend a round pipe into a curved section result in poor spirals and inclined arcs. Therefore, it is better to make small sections from a round profile that can be easily leveled and adjusted to size.
Working with a semi-automatic welding machine is quite simple, you just need to practice connecting different types of pipes; choosing the gas mode and flow rate will take no more than a few hours. An alternative to a semi-automatic machine can be an inverter welding machine. It also allows you to weld seams quite well, but working with such equipment requires very good electrodes and some experience as a welder.
Drawing, standard dimensions of legs and seat
Before you start creating a drawing, you need to decide on the design and type of construction of the future chair. At this stage we think about:
- Number of legs. The most successful option would be to make a chair with four supports .
- Possibility of height adjustment. Of course, you can make a standard chair, but it will be much more convenient if its height can be adjusted.
- Ease of use. To do this, it is recommended to make a footrest, armrests and a backrest for the chair.
- Upholstery and materials for making the frame. The frame can be made of wood or metal. And for upholstery, durable and beautiful fabrics are chosen.
After this, the optimal option for creating a drawing of a bar stool is selected. And you can do this in different ways:
- Draw by hand with a pencil on a piece of paper or graph paper. This option is suitable for professional furniture makers who know how to imagine a piece of furniture in different projections and implement it all on paper.
- Find a suitable drawing option on the Internet. This is the easiest way, and all novice masters use this method. Here you won’t have to calculate the dimensions of the chair, calculate the amount of consumables, or come up with a design. Experienced professionals will do all this for you in advance.
- Use special computer programs. The most popular of them are: cutting, PRO - 100.
Which option to choose is up to you. The main thing is that the design of the bar stool is thought out correctly. After all, its comfort in operation will depend on this.
Although there are many options for creating a bar stool design, it is worth considering the following factors. Namely, this piece of furniture must have certain dimensions :
height from the floor to the seat is within 75-85 cm;- height from floor to tabletop - 110 - 130 cm.
- distance from the seat to the bar counter - 30 - 35 cm;
- length between legs - 40 cm;
- width between legs - 30 cm;
- seat width - 25 - 30 cm;
- seat length 35 - 40 cm.
These are just symbols. If the seat of a bar stool has a round or oval shape, its dimensions will differ significantly from those indicated above.
Also, when creating a drawing, it is worth considering that the seat can be either hard or soft. To make a soft seat, you will need to additionally prepare the following materials:
- foam;
- upholstery fabric;
- furniture stapler;
- paint glue.
Types of construction
First, let's decide which type of bar counter is suitable for your apartment. In general, all designs are divided into varieties according to the following parameters:
- location;
- type of base.
The rest of the differences are in the little things: shape, color, etc. These parameters depend solely on your taste and the style of the room, so we won’t dwell on them. But let's look at the items from the list in more detail.
Let's start with the location. The stand can be:
- insular. This is a free-standing element of the interior that can be approached from all sides. Thus, you can set up a full-fledged bar. It looks very stylish, but is only suitable for large rooms, because this type of placement requires a lot of space;
- adjacent to the kitchen unit. In this case, the counter can be placed in two ways: either to serve as a continuation of the kitchen unit, or to be located at an angle to it (usually perpendicular). The first approach is good because it does not require a lot of free space. And with the help of a corner stand you can perfectly zone a room;
- adjacent to the wall. Most often, the long side of the rack is used for fastening. This interior element is good for its increased stability due to its fixation to the wall. In addition, the wall rack can be folded - this is an excellent method of saving space if necessary.
As for the reasons, there are two options:
- open. The base is represented by either a support pipe or legs. The space under the countertop remains open;
- closed. The tabletop is located on the body, inside of which there may be cabinets with shelves, niches for built-in appliances, etc.
The first option makes the stand visually light and airy. And the second makes it possible to save space by arranging an area inside the base for storing various things or for installing equipment.
Tools and materials
The tools we need are:
pencil, tape measure, ruler (all of these are used to create a drawing and mark the lumber);- square;
- wood hacksaw;
- sandpaper or sander;
- drill or screwdriver;
- hammer;
- topped up.
The materials that will be used in the work process are::
- lumber;
- fasteners for legs;
- glue;
- self-tapping screws;
- paints and varnishes;
- stain;
- solvent;
- brushes
Next steps
Having finished with the drawings, you need to take care of purchasing materials. Parts can be ordered from the carpentry shop and they will be delivered when they are ready. Or go shopping in person; everything you need can be purchased at hardware stores or construction hypermarkets.
Unlike a wooden product, with a metal frame everything is not so simple. The work may require the use of special skills and tools.
If there are no connectors for fastenings, then you will have to weld the joints using electric welding.
How to do it according to the standard?
Making a bar stool, like any other piece of furniture, begins with sawing the parts. We will need to prepare the following individual elements:
- four stiffening ribs, the thickness of which must be at least 3 cm;
- two circles. The thickness of the first is 2 cm and the diameter is 26 cm, the thickness of the second is 3 cm and the diameter is 36 cm;
- four legs, each 3 cm thick.
Help: the small circle will be used as a backing, the large circle as a seat.
After preparing the individual elements of the bar stool, you can begin assembling it. All parts are assembled with self-tapping screws, and to give the product strength, you can use PVA glue . The bar stool assembly process will look like this:
The legs are connected to each other and a small circle.- Next, a second circle is screwed to a small circle using self-tapping screws.
- Then the stiffeners are screwed on.
- Next, the product is covered with stain and after it dries, two layers of varnish.
We looked at the simplest option for making a bar stool from natural wood with your own hands.
If you want to make a recess in the seat, you need to cut it out on the surface, and then plan it using a chisel. Next, the seat is sanded and covered with paints and varnishes.
The seat of a bar stool can be made soft. To do this, foam rubber with a thickness of at least 3 cm is glued to plywood or boards, and upholstery fabric is nailed on top using a stapler.
Covers for bar stools
The final stage of production will be decorating the product and covering it with soft fabric. The most practical would be to create removable covers, since they can be washed periodically. You can also create a soft seat covered with regular fabric and sew a top, replaceable cover.
The covers are:
- Removable with ties. These are small mats made to fit the size of the seat. They are tied to the legs using ties.
- Fixed, which are pulled over the seat. These covers are made exactly to the size of the seat and are attached to it using an elastic band at the bottom or nailed with small furniture nails. Fastening with an elastic band allows you to periodically remove the cover, which is more hygienic.
Decorating wooden furniture
After making a bar stool, it needs to be decorated. Each craftsman chooses his own version of decorating a piece of furniture made by himself.
Some simply cover wooden surfaces with stain and varnish or paint. Some people like to carve the legs and back of furniture, while others prefer the decoupage technique.
The easiest way to decorate a bar stool is with fabric . For these purposes, materials that are resistant to moisture and dirt are selected (tapestry, leather, leatherette, jacquard, microfiber).
It is not at all necessary to bother yourself with reupholstering furniture; sometimes it is enough to simply sew covers on it. This way you can update the interior of the room from time to time by creating new covers. When choosing fabric for decoration, it is important to consider the overall interior of the kitchen or dining room. The chair should fit harmoniously into the surrounding environment and be its main decoration.
Advice : if you liked the process of making chairs, try also assembling a kneeling version, kitchen or country. And if you want to impress your guests with your craftsmanship, make a chair out of tires, a bed out of pallets, or a table with an epoxy top.
Why on your own?
Of course, we are not saying that you should forget about furniture stores and instead make all your furniture yourself. But if you look at the photographs of bar stools that can be found in numerous catalogs of furniture stores, you can conclude: you can actually make such a chair yourself !
Bar stools are easy to make with your own hands
In addition, pieces of furniture made by yourself can become a true decoration of the home, pleasing not only the eye, but also the soul.
On a note! In this case, there are also more possibilities, since you decide for yourself which option is best suited for the interior of the room. There is no need to mention once again about people who like to work with their hands.
Original bar stools
Photo
Ideas for decorating the resulting furniture and its use can be seen in the following photos: