Ana White Chaise Lounges

You ready to see my summer office? It's this nice cozy spot in my backyard. Notice I didn't say quiet. My backyard in the summer is anything but quiet. It's barely controlled chaos of a bazillion kids. But at least now I can supervise the water wars and games of tag from my new Ana White lounge chairs!

I used the Ana White Chaise Lounge plans to build the lounges. The first thing I did was sand down ALL my lumber. Wear a mask while doing this because the belt sander kicks off a ton of dust. I wanted my chairs nice and smooth.

After sanding and cutting all my boards I vacuumed and cleaned off all the dust on them so they were ready to paint. Then laid them on my garage floor with some scrap wood under the boards to raise them off the floor.

I painted all the boards while they were on the garage floor before building. I think this is MUCH easier especially when dealing with something that has slats. So much easier to paint flat lumber then trying to paint between crevices.

I used a 4 inch foam roller and started by priming with Zinsser 123 primer. I would paint one side of the boards, let it dry overnight then paint the other side and let it dry overnight again. I followed the same process with paint and did two coats of paint. It didn't take much time for the actual painting work but the drying took a few days. I used Royal Outdoor House and Trim paint in Heavenly Sand. The paint is from Ace Hardware and it's designed for the outside of houses so it's perfect for outdoor furniture as well.

Then I just followed Ana White's lounge chair plans to build my chairs. I built the lounge chair bases with Kreg jig pocket holes and screws. You could use regular screws but I'm totally addicted to the kreg jig. It really is an awesome tool.

The slats are all attached with wood glue and a nail gun.

I thought the hardest part of the chairs was the cut outs for the 2x4 to rest in when you are lounging. I solved that problem by having my husband do it. LOL. He just used one of our smaller saws and then chiseled out the wood once it was in small slices.

Once the lounge chairs were completely built I touched up all the paint. The chairs were pretty easy to build and only cost $35 in lumber each. The chairs will fit a standard lounge chair cushion but I'm going to wait until they go on sale at the end of summer before buying mine. The chairs are really comfortable and it's so nice to be able to adjust the back rest and put your feet up. Summer bliss.