Outdoor Sofa Made Out of Pallet Wood
We’re lucky enough to have a large, sheltered first floor balcony that seems to suck up the sun, keeping it several degrees warmer than the ambient temperature and it really needed better seating. Que large pallet pickup and out with the tools…
First things first though. Design or more specifically, ergonomics. What is the best angle to use to get the most comfortable seating experience? After all, I intend to spend a lot of time sitting on this sofa! After a fair bit of reading around I settled on a 5 degree slope on the sofa base front to back and a seating angle of 110 degrees (or a 15 degree slope backwards on the sofa back). This seemed to provide a comfortable seating position but wasn’t so sloped that you couldn’t lie down (We like taking a nap out here…..) without rolling to the back.
I opted to take the timber from my pallets and build the sofa using my regular carpentry skills and it did take quite a bit of juggling the saw settings to get the angles required. I think this is because my brain is just so geared up to work at 90 degrees as they form the vast majority of cuts in everyday joinery.
If you want to build a much simplified version of this sofa, use the pallets intact. Just cut the pallet down through the bearers to narrow the width and build them up on top of each other. Add a packing piece at the front to get the 5 degree slope back to front.
Tips for outdoor sofa/ seat ergonomics…
Here, I’ll the pictures take over…..
The corner details showing the centre beam and double angled slope from it (front to back). I didn’t have any scrap wood long enough to make the back bearers, so I added in a couple of short pieces to make it to the corner.
The base framework for the outdoor sofa sitting on the intermediate legs.
Side arms also form the end two legs and I made them from the 50mm x 100mm (2" by 4") pallet bearers and I notched them over the frame side for strength.
Space out the bottom slats with something around 25mm or 1' wide; I used a chisel. One screw is enough for the slat ends.
The ideal angle between the base and the back rest is 110 degrees for max comfort.
The dimensions of the seat base to fit my 600mm cushions
Almost finished!
And after giving it a couple of coats of a clear wood preservative and a couple of days or so to dry, it was ready for the grand opening! And very comfortable it is too…
Ideal outdoor sofa built out of old pallet wood.
Stay well
Ian
Originally published at handycrowd.com.
