White Oak Rocks!

Maine has a great boat building tradition. And nothing holds up below the waterline like white oak. Because it is sturdier than cedar or pressure treated pine and not as pricey or "exotic" as teak, white oak is the workhorse for outdoor furniture applications as well. This white oak arm chair is the first entry in my "Waterline" series which will include a garden bench, a small side tabel and a picnic table that seats four, or six with end stools.

Living (with) Color

You can order my Weekender chairs in any color you can imagine. Or go to any Benjamin Moore paint store and pick up a fan deck. When I'm trying to decide on a color, I'll take the paint chip (or two or three) and stick it to the dashboard in my truck and drive around with it. That way I can get a good sense of effect of light and shadow. Also a feel for how the colors will work with each other. Before choosing my colors I like to live with them for a while.

I'll Follow The Sun

Feeling like a dark cloud is hanging over our heads every day? Well it is, and has been for most of our short summer here in Maine. Rain, drizzle, more rain and cloudy skies. And still more rain. When will it ever end? But there's hope!
I've discovered yet another fantastic feature of my Weekender Chairs: wherever you place them, the sun comes out. Well, at least it does in your mind. You can get that summer feeling all year round.
Why sit under a cloud? Order your Weekender today and I'll include a free bottle of sunscreen with every chair purchased.

Perfect Pitch

Hey, I'm almost famous. Ray Routhier gave me a nice mention in his article on DIY Adirondacks in the Portland Sunday Telegram. Thanks for the press Ray! My "Grace" chair pretty much sums up my philosophy on angles. Don't worry about exact numbers of degrees. Go out and buy a $5.00 bevel gauge (an instrument used for transferring angles) and lay it into your favorite chair. Tweak or transfer those angles to the chair you are building, and you'll have the perfect pitch to fit you. Another thing you will want to pay attention to is keeping your arms flat. Get your level out for that. And last piece of advice: make your arms wide. I'm talking fat. Don't be stingy. Most manufacturers give you skinny little arms. Well guess what? They want to sell you those cheap little side tables too. Don't fuss too much over your first chair(s). Practise makes perfect. I'm still trying to get there.

Drop me an email if you need some help or encouragement.

World's Best Adirondack Chair

Some adirondacks are too big, some are too small. Some are too skinny, some are too tall. Some adirondacks keep pinching your knees. Some adirondacks fly away on the breeze. Some adirondacks tip back so you'll never get out. Some adirondacks are not very stout. My Weekender Chair will answer your prayer, built right here in Maine by a craftsman with care. Hey, I'm a poet and I never realized that I was one.

Quality You Can't See

My Weekender chairs have no visible fasteners. This is good for two reasons: you can't snag your pants on them and the weather can't get at them. Stainless steel screws are countersunk below the wood surface and the hole is filled with a wooden plug, or bung in boat builder's lingo.

Each bung is then pared down so it lies flush and virtually disappears once paint is applied. It's a ton of work. There are 64 bungs in every chair. It's quality you can't see. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Joe's Chair

Everyone should have their own special chair. A place to get away and be still. To sit with one's thoughts, to perhaps savor some memories. Or mark regrets. Plan the future, work up a shopping list, listen to the wind. Think of everything. Think of nothing. Everyone should have their own special chair. This is Joe's chair. How about you?

Weekender Chair Plans

I've had requests from folks who want to purchase my Weekender Chair plans. The rather crude drawing to the right is what I used to build my first one. I am in the process of developing a more legible set of plans. My ace webmaster Phil will then find a way to make them downloadable from my site for $14.95. If you want to build one using cherry, materials can run about $175. If you go with pressure treated your cost will be about $50 per chair. Of course I am always here to save you the trouble for $375 per chair. When you try to build one you'll appreciate the fairness of my price. As that old advertisement goes, "an educated consumer is my best customer".

Weekender #33 - Roxanne's Chair

One of the great characteristics of cherry wood is that over time the lighter tones get darker and deepen into shades of rich red-brown. The tung oil finish protects the wood without giving it that plastic glossy look of polyurethane. When I'm at shows it's amazing to see how few people can resist touching this chair. They can't help it. There's a sensuality to cherry that is hard to resist. And her charms grow stronger with age. You're not getting older your getting better.

Show Your Stripes!

I want to thank Jana at Carver Hill Gallery in Rockport, Maine for suggesting a Weekender chair in stripes. Lends a certain air of formality to one's afternoon lawn party. Not too stodgy though. In fact, I can hear a rather lively croquet match going on nearby. Tennis anyone?

Rietveld Redux

"Brutus" is my rustic version of Gerrit Rietveld's Red and Blue chair of 1917. I used rock maple saplings for the frame and slats. Traditional mortise and tenon joinery holds the whole thing together. A tung oil varnish finish gives "Brutus" just the right amount of luster. I added the below-the-seat shelf for reading materials, binoculars, small pets and other items you like to have handy at the camp. I can see a whole row of these on your back porch overlooking the lake. Yessa!

Waypoints

I've been on this journey of 100 chairs for just over a year now. It's time to take a look back before we plot our course for the future. It all began with the prototype of what would become my "Weekender Chair" back in May of 2008 (see photo). I'd planned to build 2 chairs per week so I should be over 100 by now. I'm at 36. Oh well. Guess I just stayed in that town too long. I have picked up a ton of technical knowledge and received some very useful suggestions from customers along the way. I have found some dead ends.
Like my talking adirondack. Pull a string and it tells you your fortune. I just made that up. Sorry. It has been a great trip so far and I look forward to the road ahead. My biggest challenge is to find a way to cut production costs. And no, that doesn't mean moving my operation to China. It takes 15 hours of labor plus materials (around $100) to built a Weekender chair, which yields a $375 retail price. I am working to get that down to where even I can afford one of my chairs.

Oddirondack

This is an odd chair. I started building from the ground up with no preconceived notion of how it would turn out. I guess I was hoping for a happy accident, a momentery spark of shear genius. This is what came out. Not sure I like it. The back makes me think of Mickey Mouse. It's comfortable enough but I'm not sure it works from a visual standpoint. It's like that Toyota Prius. A great automobile from a purely functional standpoint, but about as ugly a car as I've ever seen. I'm not sure my chair is as ugly as the Prius. But it's a close second.

Revisiting The Past

This is a prototype of my Nor'easter chair from 2007. I still like the looks and comfort of this chair but it was fairly expensive to build. I made a limited edition of them available. Now those have all sold and I'd like to make more. I am in the process of re-engineering the joinery to simplify building and hope to have a "Nor'easter II" available at lower cost (to me and you) later this summer. Please stay tuned.

Mine's Better

A side by side comparison of my Weekender chair and "Brand X" shows that there is no comparison. Mine is Bigger, Bolder, Brighter, Better. Theirs costs around $200 and will give you about two Maine summers before the screws come loose and the paint starts to peel. Rot sets in and before you know it, you'll be dragging the whole sorry mess to the dump. My Weekender chair costs $375 and will give you a lifetime of sunset sitting, beach house barbecuing and lakeside lolling. Because they are built with quality materials and hand crafted with care you definitely get what you pay for: fine chairs for great outdoor living. So, what's the bottom line: if you like making trips to the dump and sending money overseas, buy Brand X. If you like spending time with family and friends in your little piece of the great outdoors, then invest in the local economy; buy mine. I'll be with you for the long haul.

Rustic Roots

The great grandfather of my Weekender chair came from Westport, New York. Thomas Lee designed and Harry Bunnell patented what became known as the "Westport Plank Chair" in 1903-1905. Reading from the patent application, "the object of this invention is a chair of the bungalow type adapted for use on porches, lawns and at camps. A further object of this invention is to produce a strong durable chair adapted to withstand rough usage and exposure to the weather." Using measured shop drawings obtained from the Adirondack Museum, I made a Westport Chair to see if I could build on Lee's earlier design. The result is my Weekender chair. I kept the wide paddle arms but raised and changed the pitch of the seat to ease egress. It's hard to find an original Westport chair. I believe that is due to Bunnell's use of hemlock (not rot-resistant) and ordinary steel screws. Stainless steel had not yet been invented! So much for durability. Most of the original Westport chairs likely fell apart and rotted away. If you can find an original, grab it. They can fetch up to $3500 at auction. For my Weekender chairs I chose to utilize solid hardwood construction and stainless steel fasteners which are countersunk and plugged to insure years of trouble free use. In addition, paint technology has come a long way since the early 1900's. Ben Moore's new Aura line of exterior acrylics are as good looking as they are durable and weather tight. All that said, It is pretty much impossible to improve on the Westport's rugged good looks. While my design strives to merge traditional and contemporary sensibilities, Lees' chair is truly a classic. Tough to improve on that.