Swivel Stool Using an Antique Japanese Pot Lid!

My wife and I found two of these lids at the dump! We often visit the dump to drop off our scrap wood and two of these beautiful lids were just sitting there on top of a pile a wood. Yes!

Step 1: The Lids!

These are the lids. Those two pieces of wood running along the top are the lid handles. You can use anything similar to make these. I want to make a swivel stool out of a wood stump in the future. A stump stool sounds awesome!!

Step 2: The Legs and Lazy Susan!

I used circular fence posts, plywood and a "Triangle Flat Square Lazy Susan Bearing" to make this stool.

You can buy the circular fence posts and plywood at your local home center. Use the height of a dining room chair to get an idea how tall you want your stool to be. I made my stool a little taller.

Step 3: Removing the Handles!

I love how these handles look and in my mind, pictured them connecting the stool legs together!

They were difficult to remove with a hammer.

Step 4: Fill in the Handle Gaps!

I cut these pieces of wood to fill in the spaces left after removing the handles.

Step 5: The Back of the Lid!

You'll need to cut two circular pieces of wood. One piece will screw onto the back of the seat and the other will hold the stool legs.

I traced the lid twice onto plywood and cut out the pieces with a jigsaw.

I used wood glue and glued the first piece of plywood onto the back of the lid. I also secured the wood with screws.

*Make sure the screws aren't too long. You don't want them poking through the seat where you'll sit. *Countersink the screws and use stainable wood putty to fill in the screw holes.

Step 6: The Legs!

Screw the fence posts into the second plywood cutout.

I used three long screws in each leg. Countersink each screw and fill the top with stainable wood putty.

I cut the lid handles to fit in between the legs like this. I used wood plugs instead of wood putty, because I think it looks nicer when stained. You shouldn't use wood plugs this long, but I have about a trillion this size on hand...why did I buy a trillion?

Step 7: Wood Plugs!

I wood glued the wood plugs into the holes and let them dry for 24 hours. I cut off the top of the plugs with a craft saw and then sanded the legs down.

Step 8: Wax On!

I used Jacobean Briwax. I love this stuff!!

Step 9:

The best "How to install a Lazy Susan" video is on Hometalk.com and it's by Stephanie Abbott. I tried making a video myself, but it was just a rip off of her video. She taught me, so I want to show her some love.

Her website is https://abbottsathome.com and she is an awesome DIYer!!