Chaise Lounge from scratch.

Towards the end of last Winter we had a heat wave where I live, with temps. in the upper 90s for a couple weeks, and I really wanted to take advantage by laying out in the sun with my coffee and sudoku; sounds like a great plan right?
Unfortionately, the way the house is shaped and oriented and the locations of all the trees make it so that the only place that has sun throughout the day is in the middle of the lawn. So, despite the fact that we have two nice decks, I was relagated to laying a towel out on our lumpy uneven lawn, and I decided that this just wouldn't do.
I set about trying to find some resources online; I know there are at least a couple other chaise ibles on here but they weren't quite what I was looking for; and much to my dismay, the only info. I could find came in the form of plans for sale on woodworking sites.
Well, being an ibler at heart, I wasn't about to pay for instructions, and set out to figure it out for myself. After all, I did have one ace up my sleeve in the form of an aging, decrepit chaise that was probably built before I was born which I could examine for ideas.
It turned out that the ace was more of a joker though, because it used this strange support system for the cushion involving woven, flat metal strips attached to the frame with dozens of springs, and although it would probably have been comfortable, I was trying to get this done without spending too much money.
After sitting in the garage, looking around and scratching my head for a while I gave up and went to play a Mass Effect for a few hours. At some point, all the bits and pieces I had seen laying around must have wormed their way into my idea of what the chaise should end up like, because the next morning I woke up, got some coffee and just started building.

Step 1 I kinda just built the frame and went from there.

I failed to take any pictures while I was building it months ago since I didn't really know exactly how the finished product would work while I was building. Recently, however; I was finally able to find a pad for it (silly seasonal products) so I took it apart to give it a coat of weatherproofing, and that's when I took all the pics so I will do my best to explain as I go.

To get started, all that is really needed is lots of lumber and  decking screws, which I had plenty of around. The basic proportions are that the whole thing should be about six feet long and about two feet wide and I used the height of the crook of my knee when seated as the basic height measurement.
If you are buying lumber for this project, you would need about 30 ft. of 2x4 and four cedar, dog-ear fence boards, but I just used what I had, most of which was left over from rebuilding the deck last summer.
The base of this project is a 6ft. by about 22" frame because I wanted the seat part to hang over some. Cut the fence boards into thirds, roughly 2ft. each, and use the square pieces to cover 2/3 of the frame, leaving the dog-eared tops for the seat back.
The seat back is just a smaller frame that fits inside the larger frame that is essentially square save for the little feet that stick out the bottom for the hinge mechanism. (see pic five) Sorry, I don't remember the dimensions for the seat back frame, but it just has to be wide enough to fit inside the larger frame, not snugly, but there shouldn't be gaps either; and, it should be a bit longer than the uncovered portion of the base frame.

Comments

[LDW]

Just for the record, it's chaise longue, not lounge. It means 'long chair' in French.

[siamonsez]

Thanks for the etymology lesson, but I think it's fair to say that the word has been Americanized and that either is correct. If you google it the chaise lounge, the results a mostly shopping stuff; where as, if you google chaise longue, it's mostly historical information.

[LDW]

OK, but what does the 'lounge' part mean in that case?

[siamonsez]

What do you mean, look the word up. A lounge is a place to kick back and relax; to lounge, is to hang out in a relaxed or lazy way. I think that pretty much embodies what a chaise lounge is for.

[LDW]

Oh, I see.

Should it not be 'chair lounge' then? Or perhaps ' lounge chair'? Or even maybe 'lounger'?

Mixing up the French and English makes the meaning sound very odd.

[siamonsez]

I'm not trying to argue, there are tons of things about the english language that don't make sense if you dig too deep. I was just saying that if you do a search it is referred to as a chaise lounge; I'm not saying that's right or wrong, just that it's what it's come to be know as.
The majority of english words are based on the same word in another language, but it's still an english word, so despite the origin, it's not mixing french and english. Besides, it's just a name, you can call it whatever you want and it doesn't have to make sense as long as enough people agree that that's what it is called.

[LDW]

That's funny: I thought there was a difference between right and wrong.

Most people put a capital letter on English, French etc as well. But perhaps you're just illiterate :-)

[siamonsez]

I didn't say there was no difference between right and wrong; I said that I was not commenting on whether it was one or the other. If you are so literate, you should have been able to understand such a simple statement, as well as avoid the six punctuation errors you made in the last comment. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was writing a great literary work, I just thought I was having a pointless debate with someone who resorts to name calling when there are no more valid points to argue instead of just admitting that it's over.

[friger]

Nice job. Here are a few pics of one I built from the plans in a magazine. It was not cheap to build but worked out very well.

[siamonsez]

Nice, I like the curves and beveled edges. I'd like to see some pics of the mechanism for the back since I made up mine as I went.

[friger]

Here are a few pictures of the back mechanism.

[siamonsez]

Thanks, I was just curious. That kind of how my old one was but the notches were shaped more like zipper teeth. I didn't want to try to cut shapes out like that since I only have a skill saw or table saw and it would have turned out badly. That's how I came up with the metal brackets, it's basically just the reverse of that. I was trying to figure out if there was a way to make it as easy to put down as it is to put up but I couldn't figure anything out but I see that this design you have to go around to the back to let it down as well. Thanks again.

[friger]

Your system looks like it works just fine. This was fun to build and I have started a second one but as with many things time is the missing resource.

[siamonsez]

Yeah, time is the enemy. I built the whole thing in one day for the most part, but like I said, I avoided any intricate cuts. It was finishing the wood that took the longest, but a friend gave me a tip about using one of those $10 pesticide sprayers from the hardware store if the stain or whatever can be thinned enough. I would have liked to try this out but the waterproofing stuff I had said not to thin it, plus it was kind of chunky from sitting around for a couple years.

[friger]

I used a Wagner power sprayer on mine and I'll tell you, you saved alot of heart ache. It was a pain.

[friger]

I'll take a few pics and post them as soon as I get a chance.

[Kiteman]

What we really need to see is somebody actually lounging in the sun.

Or possibly a cat.