Four Foot Stools Plus a Step Stool.

  Over the course of the last few years I have made several stools in my shop. It seems that there are lots of folks out there that need a bit of a help up or who what to put their feet up at the end of a busy day.

  This stool is for Clara to give her a way to reach the light switch in her bedroom. This stool is made from 2 x 8 spruce, the only thing that distinguishes this stool from something hammered together for use in a barn is the inlay and carved name.  Isn't that the case with most woodworking? The designs are basic and the details decide whether the project belongs in a barn or a boudoir.

  I think this foot stool is the most sophisticated stool I've made. The stool follows the Art and Crafts or Mission Style furniture in our living room, the top lifts off and provides storage for books and magazines. I made the piece from poplar and stained it to match our other furniture. If you looked inside you would find that it is held together with many carefully placed pocket hole screws. 

  This funny foot stool was designed for my daughter to use while nursing the grand kids. The sloped design helps get your legs into a comfortable positions for holding the baby, I am told. The two big holes are hand holds making it easy to pick up the stool and move it about with one hand.  Now that the babies are grown the foot stool is back here, waiting....

 This is the classic Kreg Pocket Hole stool, though in this case it is made from maple with walnut pocket hole plugs instead of being made from pine, with the pocket holes hidden.

  This step stool is actually my own design. We needed a way for the grand kids to reach the bathroom sink to wash their hands before eating. Since the powder room is small I made a stool with a step that pushed in so that it didn't take up much floor space.

This stool is made from a piece of laminated birch that was a shelf from IKEA. It was in their As-Is section,cheap so I bought a few of them. 

  

Wood working and making useful things brings me pleasure and now my Grandson want to make things too,and that is the greatest pleasure (and challenge) yet.

working on a project last summer.

  Keep making sawdust.

cheers, ianw

Small Step Stools

http://www.thetoolstore.ca/catalog/Shaker%20Inspired%20Step%20Stool.pdf

 
    This little step stool plan is on thetoolstore.ca site along with a variety of smaller projects.  This stool is a version of a Shaker Design and a popular plan out in cyberspace.  You don't have to look very far to find this step stool make with dovetail joints, it of course could also be made with biscuits.  To make it fast and strong pocket holes with the Kreg jig is what is recommended in this plan.

   Another popular design for a step stool is the one that KREG used to display in their sales booth at the wood shows.

This is the version that evolved over the course of the many copies of the foot stool I made while I worked for KREG TOOLS a few years ago.  I added the hand hole to their design.  In the version I featured the contrasting wood, but it is just as easy to make the project and hide all the pocket holes and skip the wood plugs totally.

     This last foot stool has been around for a very long time,  since I was in Grade Seven in Rolling Meadows Public School in Burlington Ontario.



   This was the required project in Gr. 7 wood shop, Gr.8 was turning a bowl on the lathe, (my Mom still has the bowls my brother and I made all those years ago).

   That little foot stool has followed me everywhere that I have had a desk for its entire life and I suspect it will follow me for my entire life.  This little foot stool is on its third covering, the first upholstery was RED, now it is brown corduroy. 

Underneath I can just see where I signed the work with a most dramatic flair and printed class 77 beside it.

   Wood lasts, a good design well executed can last a very long time.