Chair Bench by Annie Coggan

This great DIY project by Annie Coggan of Coggan + Crawford was recently posted on Design*Sponge. Since I'm chair-obsessed at the moment, the chair/bench naturally caught my eye. I'm putting it on my DIY To-Do list. Look through the full D*S "Sneak Peak" post for more of Annie's signature chairs.

Central Square Chair Sale: 12 Hours

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For this chair I used one-inch soft foam as my top layer of padding. I traced the shape of the chair frame onto the foam and cut it out. Here is where I had to start paying attention to details, because if I was sloppy about attaching my foam, my whole chair would look lopsided - and who wants to sit on a lopsided chair? No one, that's who. I had to staple the foam very slowly, working from top to bottom, so as to not accidentally deform my cushion shape. My arms were aching from holding the staple gun steady for so long.

Central Square Chair Sale: 10 Hours

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I created the lip you see around the seat of the chair by rolling strips of cotton in burlap and stapling them to the frame. These rolls are designed to hold in the padding, as well as create a rounded edge once the fabric is added. Cotton goes down before the foam to create a desired shape, as well as provide extra padding. Here I used two layers of cotton to raise the center of the chair back. It's so primitive looking, but I guess it's how the pros still do it!

Brownstone Library

Saw this odd stoop walking down Commonwealth Ave. in the Back Bay. The occupant of this old brownstone has so many books he can't even open his front door! I'm sure he's lucky enough to have a second entrance, but it's still a pretty odd location for a personal library.

Central Square Chair Sale: 9 Hours

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Next up was stapling pieces of burlap over the webbing. This went pretty quickly. Then came the sanding and staining of the frame.

Central Square Chair Sale: 8 Hours

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Once the chair was dry I cut strips of burlap webbing. These were were then stretched, weaved, and stapled to the seat and back of the chair. The webbing on the back of the chair is only partially weaved to maintain the curve of the chair. This was a really fun process, mostly because it is starting to look like a chair again!

Sanding and staining should have actually taken place before the webbing was added, but I wouldn't have been able to work on the chair that day while it was drying had I applied stain at the beginning of class. I waited until the end and just worked around the material.