How to Design a Porch Swing

Designing Your Swing

• 1

  Collect pictures of porch swings from home and garden magazines. Choose a few you like and circle the things you like about them in terms of shape.

• 2

  Draw on your graph paper a horizontal line to represent the bottom of the chair (as if you were looking at it from one side). Use a scale ratio of two squares for every foot, and make your chair bottom four squares long.

• 3

  Place the protractor bottom edge on this line, so the protractor center lines up with one end. Then make a mark at the 95-degree line on the protractor. Use a ruler to draw a straight line using a ruler from one end of the horizontal line up to this mark. Darken the line so it crosses six squares, so it will be three feet long. This is the back rest of the porch swing.

• 4

  Draw another horizontal line that is 10 squares long to make your porch swing five feet long.

• 5

  Place the protractor on one end of this line, and again mark off a 95-degree angle, then draw a line up to this point to define the sides of the chair.This line extends out from the end of the horizontal line, so the back rest flares out to the side just slightly. This line also crosses six squares, so the backrest will be three feet high.

• 6

  Draw in the top of backrest by carefully copying the style from a picture of a porch swing you like best. Use the graph as a guide, drawing one half first and then copying this half on the other side. Pay attention to where the lines on your first side intersect with the graph squares to make both sides symmetrical.

• 7

  Draw in the rungs for the back rest by creating parallel lines along the graph paper, each one spaced one half square apart for a real-life distance of three inches apart. Using this method you can accurately see how many rungs you will need for the final design. You will also know the length of the boards you will use to create the seat and top of the back rest.

• 8

  Now make a mark on each side or the top of the seat back one square from the end. This is for the eyelet hooks that will attach the swing to a stand. The swing will be attached by chain and hooks to these eyelets.

• 9

  Design the swing stand by drawing two vertical lines on each side of the swing chair, each one square from the end of the chair. Start the line two squares from the bottom of the chair, and continue it up so it is eight squares from the top. Then connect them with a horizontal line. This represents the vertical height of the stand and only represents the view from the front.

• 10

  On the profile part of the design, draw two marks on each side of the chair profile eight squares from the bottom and each one extending two squares back and eight squares forward from the center of the chair. Then make one mark eight squares directly above the center of the chair. Draw a line from each mark on the bottom to the top. This is the length of your vertical supports for the swing stand. They will be connected by a one-half-inch, four-inch long threaded bolt with nut and washer on each side. The center brace connects each one.