Build a Chair from Bulls%$t, Christopher Schwarz (book)

Build a Chair from Bulls%$t by Christopher Schwarz, Lost Art Press. Build a comfortable wooden stick chair using only materials and tools from your home centre, with no jigs, specialty tools or exotic techniques. For centuries farmers and handy people built comfortable chairs with simple tools and the materials around them, and this book shows how easy it is today.

Shovel handles and stair handrails become legs, the seat and headrest come from construction lumber, the spindles are dowels and the curved arm is plywood. All the sawing is with a jigsaw or small band saw, and you also need a battery drill, a block plane, some bits and other basic tools you probably own.

The book shows how to make the chair with simple illustrations. Instead of trigonometry and compound angles, it shows how to drill all the angles by clamping the arm to the seat and drilling through both. The chair is spacious and comfortable, based on antique folk chairs by a cottage fireside, but its straight lines suit a modern living room or kitchen. A bonus section shows how to make a three-legged stool from the scraps.

One of Lost Art Press's pocket books, it is 4" × 6.5" with 112 pages, sewn and bound in heavy cloth-covered boards. Christopher Schwarz is a furniture maker, writer and one of the founders of Lost Art Press and Crucible Tool.