Harper's indoor book for boys

by Joseph H. Adams

One of the most comfortable pieces of furniture in a boy’s room is a Morris chair, and if properly constructed it should last almost for a lifetime.

Fig. 6 gives a good idea for a solid affair that can be made twenty inches wide and twenty inches deep from outside to outside of corner-posts. The posts are two inches square and twenty-three inches high, and in the front and back ones laps are cut to receive three-inch rails, with the upper edges sixteen inches above the floor. At the lower part of the sides, five inches above the floor, two-inch rails are let into the posts. From these side-rails to the under side of the arms four flat balustrades are mounted and held in position to the lower rails with screws and glue. At the upper end they are mortised into the under side of the arms for half an inch. Two more rails are let into the posts at the inside and on a line with the rails, at front and back, that support the seat and to which the leather is to be attached.

A frame twenty-two inches high is made for the back and covered with leather stretched tight and nailed all around the edges with large, oval-headed upholsterers’ tacks. The back is hinged to the rear rail of the chair, and held in position with a cross-rod, which in turn is supported by wooden pins driven into the end of the arms, as shown in the illustration. The arms are wedge-shaped, five inches broad at the front and two inches at the rear, where the ends are rounded. They are held to the tops of the corner-posts with long, slim screws, the heads of which are covered with the imitation nail-heads described in the making of the plain chair (Fig. 1).

Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fig. 8.

A Settle

For the side of a room, where there is space to accommodate it, a settle is a comfortable piece of furniture, and Fig. 7 gives some good lines that can easily be followed.

The back of this settle is forty-two inches long and thirty-two inches high. The seat is sixteen inches above the floor and eighteen inches deep. The front plates are each six inches wide, twenty-five inches high, and seven-eighths of an inch thick. They are attached to the front and side rails of the settle with stout screws and glue, and a line of screws is driven through the front plate and into the edge of the one it laps against, as shown at Fig. 8, which is one end of the settle frame.

The leather forming the seat is drawn over the front and back rails (which are each six inches wide), and is nailed to the wood, as shown in the illustration. The leather is applied to the back in the same manner, and, to hold the edges down, glue may be used.

A chair may be constructed in similar fashion with the same height and depth dimensions, but twenty-four inches wide over all, the side-plates under the arms being four inches wide.