Stools, Coasters and Handles Come Free
Making a footstool-cum-toddler seat sometimes comes from free wood, as do many other small projects. Oak, ash, cherry, walnut, just about any wood will make a good stool, including the most basic of softwoods. When my daughter-in-law asked me to take a damaged chair with missing parts away to discard I didn’t at first think anything of saving it. It was past its best, could be repaired but not really a chair for the age. I dismantled the chair but then thought of how Joseph and Kat had bought them as their first together chair set ten years ago for when they got married. I thought, well, I could at least make a stool from it. Setting aside the other parts, I reshaped the seat and made four tapered legs to create a footstool from it. It was an hour’s fun with no pressure for me. Many of the other parts were also useable though some had failed at different pressure points including the bow back.
Having made just one of the stools I gave it to my granddaughter who helped me to shape one of the legs with a spokeshave. She also helped me to sweep up the shavings. There is something very magical about woodworking with grandchildren. Especially two-year-olds! The second stool I made was filmed for a two-episode woodworkingmasterclasses free project.
I did cut up most of the remaining components for firewood for a friend but I retrieved the pierce medallion from the centre splat to make into a coaster and then a part of the arched hoop back for a drawer handle. All very quick and simple projects. I kept other parts for handles for tools like files too!
All in all, these items took about an hour to do. I then went on to film the making of the second one because secondhand chairs can be had from garage sales and secondhand shops for almost nothing.
STOOLS, COASTERS AND HANDLES COME FREE
By Paul Sellers | 19 March 2021
The second stool I made was filmed for a two-episode woodworkingmasterclasses free project.
cant find this project can you please provide link
thanks in advance
It has to be edited yet, sorry, but soon!
And just when I was thinking I must throw out the two similar broken backed chairs in my workshop!
Nice bit of repurposing.
My wife is going to make a stool very similar to that one but we haven’t been able to find a large enough piece of wood for the seat. Do you think 2 pieces joined together would be strong enough? Thanks
Depending on the width and thickness two pieces joined should be fine.
There is no problem joining wood together along its length. Use as many pieces as you like to make the top seat.
It is interesting you mention feeling pressure at times. I first that surprised me but I guess now that woodworking is your professional identity with people the world over scrutinizing every last thing for the slightest gap I can definitely see how there would be a feeling pressure from that! And then when you challenge yourself at this point it must be a pretty complex and difficult task so there is pressure we put on ourselves when we make things, too. I feel very lucky that woodworking is an escape from the pressure in my life. But I am also aware that as I come to the end of a long complex coffee table project in which I challenged myself, I feel some relief too. So maybe I have started to get to the point where I am feeling pressure myself.
Free materials are everywhere, On my walk last week, spotted a neighbour was disposing of some old drawers, and a cabinet door. Probably mid last century, but well made. The door was veneered pine, but the drawer fronts are solid, tropical hardwood of some sort 3/4” thick 7 inches wide of various lengths all in good nick, will be useful for boxes or shelving or something
Well done! While half the world ‘talks’ about climate, resources and wring their hands, this is the perfect example of what can be done at an individual level. In Britain, 60+ million instances like this once a week, would transform the disgracefully wasteful society we have become. What we now call stewardship and recycling is what our parents and grandparents did as a matter of course and necessity. What you did Paul is a state of mind. Waste not, want not. It was evident that idea after idea came to mind as you utilised this old chair, and look at all that you got just by being imaginative. Bravo Mr Sellers, bravo!
Great job Paul! I also enjoy salvaging old furniture. Thank you.
I forgot to say what a wonderful stool you made, and the association with your granddaughter is a value not calculable in financial terms.
My father is now over 80, but still fairly active. He has two old stools that were once chairs and from which the backs have long vanished. They have numerous coats of peeling paint on them, as everytime he painted something, the stools got the remaining paint. It would be impossible to calculate how many jobs around the home and garden they have facilitated, and after our workbench they must be the most useful items we have.
Thank you Paul, I love projects like this.
I am in the process of dismantling a 100 year old upright piano that has reached the end of its musical life. No one wanted it and it was too heavy to move and too expensive to restore to working condition so I am taking it apart piece by piece to salvage as much of the 100 year old wood as I can. I hate the idea of it ending up as firewood or going to the landfill. I don’t think it was an expensive piano in its day but still, it has an amazing amount of good solid wood and flat head screws of all sizes and other hardware in it that will become projects for years to come. The large panels are all veneered and some in rough shape (though the faces that were on the inside look almost like new from being entombed in the case). The soundboard is made from wide solid planks of spruce I believe. The best pieces I will set aside for now until my skills can do them justice though the ideas are already swirling in my head!
I only recently started my woodworking journey at age 40 after a very unfulfilling life up until now but thanks in large part to you (who I found by chance one day on YouTube building a workbench in your backyard in the rain against a tree!) I find myself excited to wake each day and work in my fledgling workshop which for the moment is a small corner of a small garage with a small clutch of tools restored by my own hands and a small pile of assorted wood salvaged from here and there. But when I’m at my relatively small 4 foot workbench (that was as big as I could make it with what I had on hand!) I feel like I have everything I need!
Just this past week I was able to deliver 5 hand mirrors based on another blog post of yours to my mother, sister and three nieces (we have lots of March birthdays!) made from scraps of oak and walnut. It was probably the proudest moment of my life! Though mine took much longer than an hour to make being the first time I’ve ever used a spokeshave or rasp. To make something from nothing, from what might have been thrown out and turn it into something to be treasured, what a gift you have given so many of us. Thank you, Paul. Your love of your craft and your generosity in sharing so much of your time and knowledge with us can never be repaid.
@Glen, I recently did the same with a small upright piano. I made my kids help and let them recycle whatever metal we couldn’t reuse. I think they got to split $20 from scrap. Not much but it was a treasure to them!
As for the wood – mostly veneered, but I planed away the outer layer and used the inside pieces. It was nice. And the peg board was rock maple. Some of the legs were hardwood too.
So far I’ve made 1) gift for our piano teacher out of one octave of keys. 2) a table to fit between our couch and chair (shared in the wwmc gallery) 3) two “Harry Potter” wands for the kids. 4) a saw handle from the peg board. 5) an embroidery stand for my wife….
And I still have quite a bit of wood left!!!
@Bill Godefroid Thanks, Bill! That has given me some ideas! It’s definitely quite a bit of work taking these things apart, they are amazingly intricate but well worth the reward I think!
Two years ago I brought home a solid red oak bedframe I found setting out for trash pickup. The joinery made it clear that this bed had been built by a hobbiest, not a manufacturer, and a heart cutout in the footboard seemed to say, “made for my (grand)daughter.” Just this month, I decided my 4yo girls need a book shelf, and lo! the wood from that bed has finally been cut down to eliminate the pocket screw holes, mortises, and tenons. I found an Arts & Crafts style plan that I had enough wood for, and cut the pieces to size. To make the top shelf prettier, I have bought one three foot long 1×6 board (gluing up many narrower ones will do for the others), so the project isn’t totally free. But it is very satisfying to think that the girl’s bed avoids the dump and becomes a book shelf for the use of two other little girls. 🙂
As we say in Texas! “I mean!”
I have no compunction about disassembling a machine-made item. Yet. I would hesitate to take a saw into another crafter’s work. That would take a lot of confidence, and a bit of flare. But then again, every time I cut into a piece of wood (and generate ‘waste’) I cut a part of some other crafter’s work; perhaps the crafter who once and often makes the trees. This likely means that I am arrogant. But, if it so be, if I cut cellulose fibers into imperfect shapes that have some mild utility on this Earth, then I will have gained an ability.
Hello Paul hope you and your family are doing well. I’m still working on my work bench. This blog is very helpful and I’m looking forward to finishing my work bench so I can start making projects. Still making mistakes but, not giving up. Once again, thank you Paul for your helpful encouragement. Your friend from Brunswick,Ohio in the USA. Bob.
I am recycling a pine picnic-bench in a workbench for the son. It will not be pretty (there are blackened old bolt holes here and there) but it will be perfectly functional. Seeing the ugly boards with the old “lasure” one would be surprised to see how nice the wood is after planing. So it didn’t suffer that much those 10 (?) years in the garden (except one rotten board).
That is a heartwarming project to read. It made me want to cry.
In my garage there are many pieces of timber from off cuts, old drawers to wall paneling that friends have given me over the years. I have absolutely no idea what I’ll use it for, but it’s there waiting to be useful “one day”.
I’m guessing I’m not alone with this wood collection.
Pretty much the only wood I’ve bought in recent years has been a small amount of ply for use as drawer bottoms… I’m still working my way through a load of old rafters which I got for free as a result of a neighbour’s loft conversion. Lods of old, good dry wood!
Matt
I already learned this as a child, but it amazes me to this day: how wood, that looks as if it drifted across the ocean and then washed ashore, cleans up so quickly and so nicely to look ‘as new’. Just a few swipes with the plane will often do the trick. Also, the veneer from veneered wood is rapidly removed with a #4 scrub plane, then smoothed with the regular #4.
This week, I sawed a bunch of sticks for the vegetable yard, from otherwise useless wood. Better than buying overpriced ones at the garden-centre. There’s plenty of free, used wood to be found, to the point I find it almost a decadent luxury to use/buy new wood.
As to what someone else commented about, regarding our (grand-)parents re-using things, I wholeheartedly agree. It’s a matter of attitude and parenting. I’ve spent many vacations in my childhood removing the mortar (chalc-based, not Portland cement) from bricks and removing nails from planks for re-use by my father. And yes, I had to carefully remove the nails so as to be able to re-use those as well… I don’t save nails anymore, that was a bit over the top in my opinion, but this attitude got deeply engrained in me during my formative years. When I got interested in electronics, the only available components available to me, in my village, were those I harvested from old broken TV-sets and radios. When a BC547-transistor costs half a guilder (I could buy 3-4 with my weekly allowance and would have to cycle to the nearest town, 10 km away, to buy one), you can imagine that an old TV with many dozens of them was a true treasure-trove for a money-starved schoolboy. All for free, except for the time and effort required for harvest. One side-benefit of this dismantling though is not just free material (piano’s for wood, electronics for parts) but, probably more important, is that you learn how things were built and work inside. And after a while you learn that often you can repair something, as opposed to dismantling it. A very educational experience. You learn that things that were properly built are much harder (sometimes impossible) to dismantle, whilst others that were shoddily build fall apart almost by themselves. Again, an educational thing.
To this day, when clothes become so worn as to be no longer suitable even for dirty work or painting, I remove the buttons and zippers, just as my mother and grandmother did (and no, I’ve never re-used a zipper – yet) for possible re-use or repairs, then the clothes get torn to rags for use in the shop and garden. Like clamps, it’s impossible to have too many rags. I find myself running out constantly.
I’m afraid the rag-collector never finds a bag from me at the street for pickup. Need those rags too hard myself! And waste wood? Even my plane-shavings get saved/re-used in the compost heap!
(unless the birds get to them first, to re-use them for building their nests….)
Yikes… those ‘quick comments’ look so much longer once posted. Apologies for the wall of text.
Thank you, Mr. Sellers! I love your teaching on how to repurpose wood!
A couple of months ago I saved two old chairs from the dumpster. But they are still waiting in line; thankfully, I am busy making. It is a lifestyle that really fits me. When I am at my workbench (yours really), I feel I am at a stable equilibrum point.
Hi Mr. Sellars,
I have a question that I figure if anyone would know the answer, it would be you. I remember seeing some little article or something on the internet many years ago that revealed ‘hidden features’ of antique saw handles. I have a vague memory that it was to do with marking out or checking angles. Now no matter what I type in to google, I can’t find it. I’m not talking about the purpose of the nib on the panel, as that seems to be even longer lost mystery and much debated.
But when I look at most saw handle designs of the 19th century, they often have surfaces which obviously aren’t just for comfort or decoration. I don’t know the right terminology, but there is always seems to be a hook facing in the direction of the panel, and it aligns with the heel. Or there’s a notch in a similar spot that seems stable over many revisions of saw handle patterns. Most intriguing of all, there is often a flat surface inside the ‘oval’ of the handle, that makes it look more like a comic book speech bubble than an oval, and the edges are often crisp, rather than rounded like that surfaces neighbour. It seems to me these features are very deliberate, but for the life of me I can’t find out why they are there and what they are used for.
One theory I had was that they might be useful for marking out dovetails or other joints without needing a template, but I still feel this misses a lot of the naunce.
Or am I just seeing purpose in decorative touches?
Please could you tell me what wood your chair /stool is made from
The seat is elm and the legs are oak.
Excellent! I have a table I made for a friend from a repurposed bed. The top is rock maple and gorgeous. I took the headboard and footboard and joined them together for the top, and then I turned the rails and other pieces into tapered legs and aprons underneath.
I’m getting into blacksmithing by hand. I just bought my kit: a smallish anvil, hammers, and forge. It is miraculous to me how wood and steel have so much in common. They are abundant, infinitely useful, can be worked by hand, and are nearly essential for civilization. Can you imagine a world without wood and steel? Plus they are the ultimate in upcycling. With wood, even the shavings, bark, and sawdust can make your garden sing.
I’ve heard that blacksmithing is the mother of all trades. I’d argue that woodworking is the father. What a marriage these two crafts make!
The frugality and upcycling of the British remind me of a documentary on the Blitz I watched. Those people were the masters of reusing and repurposing. Darn fine documentary!
The coaster is nice, but I’m slightly disappointed that you couldn’t find a way to use the complete back-splat; I liked its flow.
(As shown, I’d also call that more trivet than coaster. Yes, it can prevent scratches, but it won’t catch condensation drips. Adding a solid back to it might be enough to solve that, admittedly.)
Thank you, did you reduce the dimensions of the seat while turning it into the stool?
I would like to make this for my nephew’s twins, and wondering which size chair would be best to scrounge for.
I was wondering the same, from the looks of it there’s plans/a video in the works which would be great.
If I had to guess, I’d say the stool is cut around the inside of the original legs, so reduced size.
I feel like there may be squeeze on the market for old spindle backed chairs soon…!
I’m wondering how best to spot ones with a ‘nicer’ seat, the grain on that elm is fantastic!
I love making useful things out of wood furniture that is no longer considered useful for its original purpose. I have made three of four dog beds/beds for dogs out of baby cribs. Basically, shrink one end section down to a more modest height. Shrink the other end to a very low height and connect them with stretchers. My wife makes the pillows and bedclothes from recycled fabrics. The dogs seem to like them and the dog owners get a kick out of one-of-a-kind furniture for their loved one.
My dog and I go out most days looking for wooden furniture people have placed at the curb for trash pickup. Some items I repair and donate to Habitat for Humanity. Some I take apart for other projects. We call it curb-side pickup (“Millie, should we go look for stuff at curb-side pickup?” She always says yes.)
Dear Paul.
I truly follow your thoughts on “up cycling” old furniture pieces. Here in Denmark there is a lot of good seasoned wood around for free or very cheap. I have myself managed to get some parts from second-hand stores which could not be sold otherwise. Either for free or for a symbolic payment. I mostly find oak, beech, fir teak or mahogany. This has changed my view at second hand stores from being “a place to buy old furniture” to “a place to source materials”. Admittedly, it does require time to prepare materials, but it comes with the satisfaction of not letting good things go to waste.
Absolutely, Troels. Absolutely!
Well PAUL, I’ve never thought of this. The handle idea is brilliant. The stool looks great.
My first thought was it is time to dumpster dive but at 66 maybe I’ll visit a yard sale instead!
Anxiously awaiting the Brazil chair. I have a friend in San Antonio who I know would cherish one. Not a chance I would find mesquite simply laying around in Atlanta. Still, there will be a way.
Thank you
Redeeming old furniture! Putting the value back into what others call junk.
Such a great thing to do. I’ve still got a little oak left from a fabric covered couch (lots of staples to remove). A couple pieces went into a rocking boat. Just used up the last of the old piano wood for utility purposes. Bought some Douglass fir last year from an old church to be demolished. The stuff is splintery though! Wish I could have gotten the floor boards. Clear 16 feet by 3-inch planks. My wife was embarrassed. , But the basement stair rail fits our house perfectly!!
Thanks, Paul, for your thoughts on redeeming cast-offs!
What I need is a box to hold all the offcuts that might never be used.
Just like the Queen growing up she had a box with pieces of string too short to use .
Paul,
Can you do a video or blog on how to add detail to table legs? I have been scouring the internet to figure out how to add circles on the legs. But haven’t found anything in-depth on it. Your chair has great detail in the legs and it would be great to see how you do it.