I saw a picture of a chair swing one day and loved it but didn't have a good spot for one, until now that is. We had an existing deck swing that was a rope hammock style chair swing and it was great until it "wore out", and by wore out I mean that my 6 year old brandishing scissors resulted in a giant hole right where one would sit. Serendipity... a wonderful excuse to make a recycled chair swing.
This is an ideal project to recycle a broken chair that you hate to just throw away. I didn't have a broken chair so I picked one up at Goodwill for a few bucks. Here is the "before" of our chair.
I planned to string rope directly through the chair seat, so I started by drilling my four holes. After the holes were drilled I cut off the legs.
Now time for a shiny fresh coat of paint. I used Rustoleum 2X primer/paint in a semi gloss indoor/outdoor and bravely let my daughter pick out the color. I was so sure she would try to talk me into pink, but she surprised me and went for a nice warm orange.
Lastly, I strung the rope and used a figure eight knot that the guy at Home Depot assured me would be strong. I attached the swing rope to some chain using large "S" hooks, chain and mounted it to the deck arbor beam using a swing-set screw kit.
This was a very quick and easy weekend project. The chair, paint, rope and hardware cost about $25.
