Bill Clay alerted me to this option and I thought it might work great for someone with a tiny house or small abode. Bill had a couple of these years ago. They are handy, in that the two pieces come apart easily, and with some forethought, can be designed in such a manner that they are hooked together flat for storage. A simple and satisfying chair made from one plank of wood.
To learn more Google “one plank chair” or “two plank chair.”
Not a Windsor, for sure, but if you are getting down to simplicity and utility they work! instructables.com has step by step instructions on building your own. They can be made simply or as fancy as you want, you decide.
My uncle built one of these and I loved it! Very comfortable as long as you round out all the edges. Hard corners force different body shapes to comply so they aren’t advised.
Hmmm, looks a bit tippy if you’re inclined to nap but probably a great chair for getting a Vitamin D bath outside. I wonder how high up you can make the seat without it being unstable? My knees are very particular about how far they’re willing to let me get down and back up again.
That second one looks a bit torturous.
If you made a seat cover for the first one, it would be even neater. I agree that 2nd one is a nice piece of art, but I’d be afraid to try it out.
I’ve made a few of these for ren faires and they are surprisingly comfy. Super simple to construct, I usually make the backs high and don’t seem to have any trouble with tipping. They are such a great blank slate and you can add all manner of designs to them. My personal chair (the first one I ever made) has a celtic-like dragon wood burned into the back.
Fun post! These are perfect for tiny house owners.
Be nice to see a person sitting on it–give a sense of scale, and whether legs go to sides, or ‘forward’ in line with the boards, and how high off the ground, how far back a person would be on it.
But one thing I wonder about with Tiny Houses is, how do you have people over for any kind of socializing? These collapsable, compact chairs would allow setting up for a gathering. Maybe around an outside campfire/picnic.
Maybe that could be an on-going topic for posts–Tiny House ‘hosting’ with ideas for how to have gatherings with a Tiny House as the focal point. Furniture, meals/foods that are easy to prepare in a limited kitchen space, etc. could be topics.
Socializing and raising kids–those are the two sticking points for me, as far as Tiny Houses.
(sorry if that’s a bit off-topic; I like the idea of this chair, apart from all rest that I’m saying here 🙂
Schneb — Yep. Exactly. When I go out to ren faires, I take my very small trailer that basically only has room for my bed and a small kitchen accessed from the back, much like a teardrop, but square. For visiting, I set up a small area outside with chairs and a quick setup canopy and a small firepit. It works great!! Visitors often bring their kids and we’ll have music and food, etc. Wonderful experience.
As far as sitting in these chairs, I like to make my chairs so you can have your legs forward or out to the side. It took a little experimenting to get the length of the seat right, but it works. I start off with a two by twelve for mine, if that helps.
A more elegant solution IMO is the so called ‘bushchair’, heres a video that explains it well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jura-cmCsA
You could easily produce a more refined version with slotted pieces. But the comfort will far outweigh the plank chair – if you’ve ever napped in a hammock you’ll know what I mean 🙂
That is darned clever! A person could make some pretty snazzy uptown versions for deck chairs. If you had some telescoping poles it could all be nicely tucked away until needed. Much harder to fall out of if you happen to imbibe just a little too much cheer around the fire some night than the plank chair.
Designed and built exact style thirty years ago. Kids loved sitting in it playing video games.
The are used as fertility chairs in Africa, dbl. the lenth of the seat portion so 2 people can fit on it and let your imagination go to work. LOL
I saw chairs like this at a Colonial Era reenactment I went to. One of the reenactors let me sit on one of them and it was the most comfortable thing in the world for my back. Such good, firm support. I’m hoping to find a place to buy one of these.