Dandan's Footstool

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Dandan

Established Member
Joined
9 Dec 2015
Messages
186
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94
Location
Southampton
Hi all,
After just 2 or 3 years of practice, Mrs Dandan has decided i'm finally ready to make something for inside the house (i'm not so sure).
Our new sofa is a weird scale, it looks like a normal 3 seat sofa but is about 25% bigger in all dimensions, meaning that when you sit on it facing forward, your knees are nowhere near the edge and your feet and calves stick out over empty space, making it a bit uncomfortable.
We tend to sit at either end in a chaise longue (sp) style as it's plenty big enough, but a better solution would be a big footstool that we can share.

It's going to be a simple build, basically a box with a cushioned lid and stumpy, turned feet. We have some left over fabric from the curtains for the lid, and the non-fabric parts of the sofa are dark brown leather and dark stained wood so I will stain the whole box dark to match.
I have most of a sheet of 18mm birch ply that I decided to use for the box, it has a decent surface finish but I won't feel too guilty about staining it.
Before I cut the mitres for this, I double checked my chop saw alignment, as I noticed some cuts I made a few days ago looked a little skew-wiff and I wasn't sure if it was my saw or my new mitre bench. Turns out the saw was off, its the makita 1019 with two parallel fixed slide bars and the blade was not planar to the bars, causing it to cut a slight diagonal even when the blade is square to the fence. Obviously I should have checked this 6 months ago when I bought it, and I was concerned I was now stuck with a very pricey wonky bit of kit, but the internet saved the day. By loosening 2 screws and using a length of wood to twist the guide bars slightly, you can bring the blade planar with the rails, phew. A few test cuts on a wide board at the max and min slide positions and I got it lined up perfectly.

So I cut the mitres and glued the box up, lo and behold, it was the squarest thing that's come off the mitre saw yet!



I'm very much winging this build, it's more of a way to practice a few techniques rather than a design study, so i'm just sort of seeing what happens rather than sticking to a rigid plan.
With that in mind, I decided a little bit of strengthening was in order, just because i could really, so I jigged up a diagonal mount on the cross cut sled and cut slots to insert some little biscuits in the corners:



The front of the sofa is leather trimmed and it has a horizontal welt line 2/3rds of the way up it. I wanted to mimic this on the footstool but the welt is so small that I thought just gluing a tiny strip of wood on would be fiddly and prone to being dislodged over time. My solution? Cut the box in half! Kind of like a bandsaw box (but done on the table saw), I cut the top third of the box off, inserted a flat strip of wood that protruded slightly all round and glued the box back together.

The top third of the box:



The insert pieces (not yet cut to width, excuse the raggedy edge):



And it glued back together:



One thing I forgot to do was to cut a rebate in the bottom edges to accept a base board. I could have hauled out the full size router and built some guides to do it in situ, or tried to maneuver it around on the router table, but I took the true enthusiast option and used it as an excuse to buy a trim router. :)
That arrives today hopefully so I can crack on this weekend.
 
Nice job.

Sure you wanna do a footstool though? I reckon you should turn it into a pool table instead, looks about right size :wink:

Interested to see what trim router you get, hope it's the DeWalt one as I quite fancied that one.
 
Cheers, it is pretty big, but then so is the sofa! It was going to be even bigger before I put the baseboard in the living room to check the size and decided I might have gone a bit overboard...

I've ordered a cheap Katsu router, I'm a Makita fan so initially looked for one of those and found out the Katsu is basically a budget version that can be repaired with Makita parts. For a tool that i'm not even sure how much I will use, it seemed sensible to get the one that was 1/3rd of the price. If I love it that much i'll buy a real Makita and keep the Katsu as a backup.
 
Well the footstool is finished, by which I mean it is in use, but i'm not entirely satisfied with the result, not because of my terrible workmanship, but because it is ABSOLUTELY HUGE!
It's way too big for the room, way too big for 2 people to put their feet on and it's even too tall. I'm not entirely sure how I managed that, I took the base board into the room before I began to check the size and it seemed suitable, but when you turn it into a 3d volume it seems significantly larger.
But anyhoo, i'll worry about that later, here is how I finished the mega-pouffe:

I got my new knock-off Katsu router and put it to work straight out of the box. It seemed to do a decent job and until the failure mode presents itself I can't really criticise the build quality, certainly not for sub £30. It cut the rebate for the base in no time:



I just needed to square the corners with a chisel:



Then in went the base board which I managed to cut a couple of mm smaller than i'd intended, I thought the board was small enough to handle through the table saw to cut to size first time but I guess I should have done a finish pass. It still fits fine and it is underneath after all, but i'll always know!



Next I glued a 25mm square strip around the top to give me something to screw the hinges into, I didn't think screwing them end-on into ply would be a very smart idea...


(This overhangs inside the box, not outside)



Feet next, every time I turn something I remember how fun turning is, I'm going to take a course some time soon to get the most out of my lathe, I doubt I could achieve anything vaguely complex but four stubby blobs was within my comfort zone (These match the sofa feet)



Once the glue had dried I chiselled the rebate for hinges and after doing one I realised I had just bought a new toy that could do this, so I did a side by side comparison, chisel:



Router (with chisel tidy-up):



The router wins on speed, that's for sure, even with the setup time. Potential for disastrous mistake was probably higher, but then i can ruin a piece of wood indiscriminately, power tool or no power tool.

Everything got a dark stain to match the sofa:





Then I got my wonderful mother so sew me up a cushion cover which I simply wrapped and stapled onto a sheet of ply for the lid, with some foam in of course.


(That's not my mother)

Soft furnishings are definitely not my strong point.
I also fixed a short length of chain inside to stop the lid opening too far but although it's functional, it's somewhat agricultural, I think it's an old bit of engine hoist chain, so I need to find something a little more elegant!

So issues that I have and my suggestion of fixing them:
It's too big. - I'm going to bascially run it through the table saw and cut'n'shut it back together, considerably smaller. The length will become the width and the width will be almost half what it was. I will remove the base and re cut the mitres so it should look good as new.
It's too tall. - The cushion is a foam block with some old pillow stuffing on top, I can take the pillow stuffing out and chamfer the foam block a little to give it shape but a little lower. I can also cut the feet down.
The lid is flush with the sides of the box. - It just looks a bit odd, needs a slight overhang, so I think I can achieve this once it has been cut down.

The only problem now is convincing my mum to get her sewing machine out again...
 
Well done Dandan. Nice to have something in the house you've made.

Lessons from this? Firstly, mock up what you are planning on building, first, so that you can check the principle dimensions. If you'd put a cushion on a cardboard box and then sat on the sofa testing it for a few minutes, you'd have got a better idea of the height you were aiming for. Secondly.......dark stain on light wood is very revealing. Stuff you thought you'd got off shows through. When you cut this box down, try to cut out the patch to the right hand end of your second last photo where it looks like there was a bit of glue spill or something similar.

Anyway, well done again. I hope this is the start of a long road in furniture making for you...........and don't forget to post the photos after the adjustments are done.

ETA......

Chisel vs router for two hinges.......Want a race?? :)

and......

If you overhang the lid, have a good think about how the hinges are going to work before you do it.
 
It looks good Dan - well done!!!
Sounds like you got lots of learning points from making that, and I bet your confidence has increased as well (I know mine would)

Regarding an alternative to the chain, I've used this in the past for a footstool: https://www.screwfix.com/p/hafele-gas-p ... 17mm/9267P

I needed two though, one on each side, due to the weight of the lid.
 
MikeG.":24d6csm1 said:
Well done Dandan. Nice to have something in the house you've made.

Lessons from this? Firstly, mock up what you are planning on building, first, so that you can check the principle dimensions. If you'd put a cushion on a cardboard box and then sat on the sofa testing it for a few minutes, you'd have got a better idea of the height you were aiming for.
Thanks Mike, I think you are right, and propping it up on a box might have given more of an idea of the finished size instead of just placing the flat base board on the floor. Good advice for next time.

MikeG.":24d6csm1 said:
Secondly.......dark stain on light wood is very revealing. Stuff you thought you'd got off shows through. When you cut this box down, try to cut out the patch to the right hand end of your second last photo where it looks like there was a bit of glue spill or something similar.
Yeah I noticed that, I think it's something in the wood rather than glue spill but it popped as soon as I put the stain on. Luckily it's right next to a patch in the ply that I never noticed before staining too so I should be able to lose both of them.

MikeG.":24d6csm1 said:
If you overhang the lid, have a good think about how the hinges are going to work before you do it.
What I think i'll do is add a small strip of foam around the perimeter of the lid to both enlarge the lid and soften the edge a little. That way I can still put hinges on the edge of the lid panel as before.

Sammy.se - Those struts are much fancier than what I have, I may have to make a purchase...
 
I think chopping it up to make it smaller will be more work than making a new one. Salvage the fabric and legs then take your box and screw it to the wall in your shop. A few shelves and maybe doors and you have nice storage. Your revised new base will be better than the first and you can cut the rabbit for the plywood before you glue it up.

Pete
 
Seeing any job through to completion counts as a triumph, and when that job is a useful piece of furniture for your home then it's an even bigger triumph.

So very well done!

=D>
 

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