Daybed Love Seat

I have just finished my 3D design course at school. For our final project, we had to create a chair from found materials and it had to be life sized. Since this is my second time around with the whole school thing, I have learned not to make projects that I can't do anything with, if I can help it! So, I decided the newly built chair would be for Sophia. DUH!
So I took the day Saturday to drive around to find a discarded something to make a chair out of. He said we could start from a chair, as long as we altered it. I ended up finding this bed at EcoBuilding Bargains for pretty cheap. It came with the headboard, foot board and the side rails, and was in decent shape. WOOO! I should have turned around and re-donated the side rails, because they attacked my arm in the car later that day, boooooo.

Headboard

Footboard

I brought it to my parents garage to butcher it. I needed to cut the foot board in half (and fast, my dad was out for a bit and I was afraid he would convince me my idea was not thought out yet, he would have been correct.) So I cut the foot board in half for the "arms" of the love seat with an electric jig-saw. Cut first, ask questions later.

It was not as simple as I had originally thought. The top of the "arms" hit above the square leg, I needed them to sit flush. Thankfully, my dad came home and intervened a little bit. He helped me decide where on the arm's legs I should cut. I wanted the end of the leg to be tapering in, not out. I don't know why, just did. I cut them off with a small coping saw, because it was a small cut and I felt that I had a bit more control that way.
To attach the sides to the headboard, I used the existing slots (where the rails would go into) and cut slots in the back of the sides to biscuit join them together.

We let the sides set in place overnight.

Then, we used scrap wood, cut at a 20 deg angle, and screwed to the inside front of each side and to the inside of the back legs, to screw the seat to. It made the whole structure much more "sound." We routered the front end of the plywood seat, to soften the edge. I also cut down the arm posts, they were just too tall, and sort of screamed "this seat used to be a bed." The finials on the back were loose. I started looking for new ones but didn't find any soon enough, so they are loosely placed on the posts. Maybe they will stay, maybe they will change, who knows?
The structure was done. I had not like the color/finish/floral motif on the bed to begin with, but now that it looked really bad. My dad suggested just painting over the floral layer of wood, but I couldn't do it half way. So I primed & painted my heart out. I decided to leave the top of the arms wood, I would like to stain them a bit darker. But, for deadline purposes, that will happen later. I made a little seat cover out of drop cloth, not perfect but it works! Another addition I would like to make is a layer of foam under the fabric. We angled the seat for proper lounging, so I also want to add an upholstered, angled back.

My prof was impressed with it, I was especially proud. It took me a couple days longer than I would have liked, but I am glad I took the time I did! What do you think?

Before-ish

After

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