Building a Cool Wooden Patio Chair! 2026

Building a Cool Wooden Patio Chair is made of light vertical grain western red cedar. The entire piece is constructed with a mortise and tenon construction.

This was the perfect opportunity. This chair has 134 mortises, each cut with the Domino assembler. The space between the pieces is only 3/16, so being precise was crucial. Any variation would be very noticeable and would ruin the piece. Festool Domino Joiner passed the test easily and made the task more manageable.

Below are the steps to build this great project…

Step 1: Materials List

• 25 Board Feet of Western Red Cedar, Teak, White Oak, Cypress, Redwood or any wood suitable for an outdoor project.
• Festool Domino Joiner, or Kreg Jig for pocket screws or other type of pocket hole jig.
• Table saw
• Band saw or jigsaw
• Garlopa
• Planer
• Router
• Glue

Step 2: Cutting slats and legs

Start by cutting the rails and slats. All slats are 3/4″ thick, all leg and rail material is 5/4 (1 1/4″). While at the table saw, cut 29 pieces @ 1 1/4″ x 20″ and 4 @ 17″ x 2″ for the legs. 2 of those pieces must be beveled at 7* to join with the backrest. The two pieces for the backrest are 21″ x 2 1/2″ and beveled at 7*.

Cut 3 pieces at 18″ for the front apron, back apron, and the bottom support piece between the legs. This is just a guide. These are my final lengths.

Cut your large pieces in case you want to make a change. Leave room for a change if necessary. Never take parts to final dimension until you are sure.

Step 3: Design

As I said in the introduction. This chair would NOT resemble a table with a back. So… I started with a basic design and tweaked, tweaked. I gave the backrest a 7* tilt and added lumbar support from the top of the seat to the middle of the back.

This was not done in any scientific way. I did a normal 5* incline and added a little. The lumbar support was done in the same way.

If you make the backrest thick, it gives you the freedom to make it however you want. It is much more difficult to add wood. Although I could do it if necessary...

But that's a different conversation, isn't it? Anyway, if you want to make one just start with a basic design and mess with it until it's visually and ergonomically pleasing...

Step 4: Cutting mortises for seat and backrest

Now comes the difficult part. If you don't have carpentry skills this is going to be difficult (or not). You can use a chisel if you want a traditional construction, but remember that there are 134 mortises in this chair. You could also use FF size cookies but the slats would need to be a little wider. You can use screws and some sink. There is no shame in that.

I just wanted to see if I could do it this way (I used 5mm x 30mm dominoes for the seat). However, if you choose to join the slats together, you will need to cut the spacer blocks to go between them while you join them. Here you can also cut mortises for the rails on the legs and bottom support pieces.

I went 6″ off the ground, but what looks good to the naked eye will work. I always try to design something that's easy to clean, so on the inside piece I want to be able to vacuum underneath and an outside piece.

I used 10mm x 50MM dominoes here for strength, but traditional mortise and tenon screws and glue work too.

Note: When I'm happy with how everything fits together, I take it all apart one more time and put a bevel edge on all the slats and edges on all the support legs and aprons using a Router.

Step 5: Glue!

Carefully glue, or screw all pieces together beginning by gluing all slats to the seat and back while they are separated.

After they have dried, attach the backrest and seat to each other and to the apron and lower the support rails. Be sure to use blocks to keep all spaces consistent.

This is very important. The gaps will be misaligned if you don't use them! When all the pieces are in place, hold them together and remove any excess glue from the joints. You can also tape the joints with painters tape. This helps prevent glue leaking from the joint from soaking into the wood fibers. Leave the chair dry overnight.

Step 6: Finish

This chair is finished with 4 coats of 450 General Exterior Finishes, which was sprayed with my Fuji HVLP.

It is a very high quality finish and allows the natural beauty of the cedar to show through, but contains UV blockers to help protect it from the sun. This chair would also look great painted.

If anyone would like to build this chair, I am happy to answer any questions you may have that are not included in the article.

More Patio Chair Ideas:

Learn more at perfectionidea.com and on our Facebook for more Building a Cool Wooden Patio Chair.

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