Spring 22 ORC Week Seven: Building the Window Seat
It’s week seven of the One Room Challenge, meaning we’re just ONE WEEK away from the reveal! We’ve been working nonstop to finish everything in time and we’re so happy with how it’s all looking! We had a pretty massive delay when we found that hole in the floor a few weeks ago, and we realized we needed a new game plan to complete our room in time.
We divided the remaining projects over the last week and have been knocking them out pretty fast. While I finished painting, Zach built (most of) a window seat in record time. Here’s how he designed and constructed a custom built-in window seat for this space:
Zach here! While I own and use a lot of tools, this is actually my first time building a cabinet-type piece of furniture from scratch. I spent a lot of time thinking through the design in my head and decided 2x4 framing was the best choice for strength and simplicity.
The first step was cutting out the baseboards to allow the base of the window seat to sit snug to the wall. I cut two longer beams based on the width, six pieces based on the depth, and six short pieces for our window seat height, which I assembled into the frame below.
The nice thing about 2x4 construction is it’s relatively easy to build 90 degree corners. I used a few different wood clamps like the Wolfcraft Corner Clamp and the Bessey 12" Bar Clamp to hold the pieces together, and then I fastened the pieces together using these screws 1 lb Box of #9x2 1/2 in Star Drive Screws. These screws are self drilling, so I don’t have to worry about pilot drilling every single screw location. I recommend using an impact driver over a drill, as it provides better torque to drive the screws.
I usually secure the pieces using at least two screws from two different (usually perpendicular) angles, which does a good job of keeping the wood from rotating or moving.
With the base completed, I moved on to cutting and fastening the rear beam running the width of the seat, the bottom plywood panel, three stringers between each pair of vertical risers, and the top front beam. Next I cut and attached four plywood panels creating the walls of the cubby. We used 19/32-in CDX plywood, as our Home Depot was out of similarly-sized ACX, which I prefer for applications like this. I used the 1 lb Box of #8x1 3/4 in Star Drive Screws to attach the thinner plywood panels to the 2x4 frame.
Once the inner panels were in, the interior storage area was pretty much complete. Next, I cut the top piece of plywood and attached it to the upper 2x4 frame.
The last steps to complete the window seat will be attaching the finish face, which I’ll do later today using 1/2 in Radiata Pine Plywood, priming and painting the window seat using Clare cabinet and trim paint, and finally, replacing the baseboards to complete the built-in look.
Long term, we might consider adding drawers to the cabinet, but for now, the open storage works for us. See you next week as we race to the finish line!
Partners
We want to give a big thank you to our amazing partners who are helping us with the One Room Challenge
Make sure to check out all of the projects happening this spring on the ORC blog. And follow me on Instagram for more photos, reels, and story updates on our project.
See you at our reveal next week!
