Do-it-yourself highchair: diagrams, drawings, dimensions. Children's high chairs: options, diagrams, sizes, with and without a table, folding Necessary materials and tools

Everyone knows that children, in addition to parental attention and care, special furniture is also required. Chairs for children also fall into this category. There are a huge number of different children's stools, chairs, and transformers on sale, so buying a ready-made chair today is not a problem, but if you want to get something special and not like everyone else, you can make it yourself.

If you want an unusual high chair for your child, you can make it yourself using your own design.

How to do child chair little guy on his own, what should you pay special attention to? These questions concern many parents. You will find the answers to them below.

What material is suitable for a high chair?

It's no secret that children's furniture, including high chairs, should differ from adult furniture in terms of safety (the material must be environmentally friendly) and, of course, size. In order to protect your baby from the harmful effects that may occur during the use of furniture, you need to approach the issue of choosing the material for the manufacture of a children's chair with great responsibility.

The ideal material for making a highchair is solid wood.

What will you have to choose from? The range of materials suitable for making furniture is quite wide and varied. Therefore, in order not to make a mistake and do right choice, first you need to familiarize yourself with the offers of the construction market. Experts do not advise choosing materials of the composite category. Even if the seller has provided you with a certificate that states safety of this material, you should not agree with this proposal.

Most often, for the manufacture of children's furniture, solid wood is used, in the production of which so-called “hoof” glue was used. Its harmlessness has been repeatedly proven in practice, since it does not contain artificial resin and a number of other unsafe substances used in the production of building materials.

I would like to note that the presence of a resin of natural origin does not mean its safety. It is best to opt for wood that does not have a high resin content. This category includes a species such as beech. It is quite durable, has a long service life, furniture made from it is not afraid of any children's tricks.

Preparatory stage

Use an electric jigsaw to cut the parts for the high chair.

You can purchase the material mentioned above (beech) at a construction market. Most often it looks like a finished shield. Standard sizes the next ones are 800x400x20 mm. To make a high chair for a child, only 2 copies will be enough. The best way to cut them is electric will do jigsaw

The following parts need to be made from this material:

  1. Parts for the side of the chair, 2 pieces. Their size will correspond to the value 450x400 mm;
  2. The seat of the chair and its back will be the same size. You also need 2 of them, each in 1 copy. The size of these parts is 340x340 mm.

May also be useful:

  • screwdriver;
  • hacksaw;
  • chisel;
  • plane;
  • ruler.

Once you have prepared the details the right size and forms, you need to process them. The back and seat will be small rectangles. But you can get creative with the shape of the side parts. The main thing is to remember that the design of a chair for a child should not have sharp corners. You can give the parts a rounded shape using a lid from a pot or saucer, using them as a template. To make it easier to cut rounded parts, you can use a narrow file. For these purposes, the most the best option there will be a wood saw, the size of which corresponds to 4 mm.

How to properly process the parts of a children's chair?

To process the parts of a children's high chair, you must use a router.

In order to carry out high-quality processing of the prepared chair parts, you need to use a router. Manual option This tool is perfect for this. Some people use sandpaper for processing, but in this case the processing process is a little delayed. Don't get rid of the sandpaper, you'll need it later.

I would like to note that all transverse sections are subject to mandatory grinding and subsequent coating with varnish. Take your time and let the varnish dry well. A few more words about the safety of the child. If you use a varnish based on turpentine rather than acetone, then this option will be more environmentally friendly.

After the varnish has dried, sand the surfaces again using sandpaper. You can achieve a particularly smooth surface by performing this procedure repeatedly. After the result is achieved, cover the chair parts with the finishing layer.

Be sure to check the quality of processing of all parts yourself. Only after making sure of the absolute quality of the parts can you begin assembling the chair.

Direct assembly procedure

Assembly diagram for a children's high chair: 1 - top bar backrests; 2 — rear leg; 3 — crossbar with a figured cutout; 4 — middle crossbar of the back; 5 — seat planks; 6 — lower backrest crossbar; 7- side drawer and crossbar; 8- front leg; 9 — front drawer and crossbar.

The assembly of children's furniture involves the use of fastening elements such as confirmats. Their size is perfect for our purpose (5x70 mm). With the help of this fastener, almost any parts can be fastened, and no preliminary preparation is required.

I would like to note that the holes in flat parts should be 8 mm in size. In contrast, end holes should not exceed a diametrical size of 5 mm, and their depth should be no more than 50 mm.

To add aesthetics to the appearance of a children's chair, you can use special furniture plugs.

But this is only possible if you are 100% sure that the child will not pick them off or accidentally swallow them.

That's all the main points regarding the question: how to make a children's highchair correctly with your own hands? Please note that a do-it-yourself chair made for a baby will differ from factory furniture in terms of environmental friendliness, convenience, safety, aesthetics and sustainability. After all, you will certainly make sure that all these properties are at the highest level.

A little advice to diversify appearance children's furniture and give it originality: you can use various kinds of stickers and drawings to decorate the chair. For example, decorate a chair using decoupage technique. And if you also involve your mother in the production, she will be able to decorate the highchair with a beautiful, soft and comfortable pillow made by herself. Agree that such furniture, made with love, will only bring joy to your little one’s everyday life.

To provide your child with comfortable, durable, beautiful furniture without spending a lot of money, you need to do it yourself. Start with less - try making a highchair with your own hands. Look at the photographs of similar pieces of furniture presented on the Internet, ready-made diagrams, drawings, determine what dimensions it should have ready product how it will fit into the interior of a children's room, etc.

Which material to choose?

The choice of manufacturing material is of no small importance. Of course, it will depend on the financial capabilities and skills of the master, but the factor of its naturalness and safety for the child’s health should not be overlooked. In the production of children's furniture, it is best to use their raw materials deciduous trees. The advantage belongs to beech, since its wood has good density, hardness, and is easy to process (for example, compared to oak). You can also use linden and birch. From coniferous species– pine, spruce, but to prevent resin stains from forming on the surface of the product during use, the wood must be deresined.

When choosing wood for a chair, be sure to ensure that the pieces are free of knots. Such areas of wood are less amenable to processing and are less strong. Active use of the high chair can lead to breakage at the knot, resulting in injury to the child.

Inexpensive wood materials include plywood. It consists of several layers of veneer of coniferous and deciduous trees. In addition to its low price, the advantages of plywood include light weight and ease of use. The elasticity of the material allows you to create original curved shapes of various parts

Chipboard is considered the most short-lived but cheapest material. A significant drawback is the use of formaldehyde and phenol-formaldehyde resins (6-18%) in its production. Also, chipboard does not have a dense texture; because of this, the fastenings are not reliable. In children's furniture, flat parts are often made from chipboard (as well as from plywood): seats, backs, table tops.

What you need to make a wooden highchair

We offer drawings and manufacturing procedures for a children's chair. Its dimensions:

  • product height – 630 mm;
  • distance between legs: depth (from front to back) – 280 mm, width (between front/rear) – 320 mm;
  • length of legs: rear – 630 mm, front – 410 mm.

For a more reliable connection of parts, self-tapping screws and tenons will be used simultaneously.

To do it yourself wooden chair child, you need to prepare in advance following materials, tools and fixtures:

  • We will use a block with a cross section of 50x50 mm in the construction of the frame.
  • 20x40 mm block for stiffening ribs and crossbars.
  • We will make a chair seat from plywood, a board or a piece of solid wood 30x10 mm.
  • To enhance the reliability of perpendicular connections, we will use metal corners.
  • Electric jigsaw or a hacksaw.
  • Plane.
  • Screwdriver or electric drill.
  • If fastening will be carried out using spikes, you will need an electric router.
  • Sandpaper or a sander to make it smooth wooden surfaces.
  • Tape measure, square, ruler.

Step-by-step instruction

  1. First of all, you need to cut off 4 legs from the timber (20x35). 2 of them should be 410 mm long and another 2 – 630 mm. Then we prepare 4 connecting strips (from the same timber) 280 mm long. They will be assigned the function of stiffening ribs, as well as handrails.
  2. With the help of spikes standard diameter(from 8 to 10 mm) we connect the left legs: short front and long back. Drill holes in the required places of the parts to be joined with an electric drill. For a strong connection, the hole must be 0.5 mm smaller diameter than thorns. Then generously lubricate each hole with glue and firmly drive the spike into it.

  1. Next, we connect the front and rear legs with crossbars at a height of 250 and 410 mm (we get the height at which the seat will be installed).
  2. Similarly, in the same sequence, you need to do the right legs - connect the front and back.
  3. The places where the chair legs connect with the crossbars are additionally reinforced with metal corners. We fasten them with self-tapping screws.
  4. Upon completion, we compare the two resulting designs. They must mirror each other, otherwise the chair will turn out uneven.
  5. We fasten both halves together using 20x20x310 mm bars. We drill holes in the crossbars with a diameter of 8 mm. We screw into them self-tapping screws containing internal hexagonal recesses in the head. At the end of this process, we get an almost finished chair without a back and seat.
  6. At the next stage of work, you need to make the back. To do this, we take several (2-3) pieces of plywood or planks with the following parameters: width - 30 mm, thickness - 10 mm. We glue them together and place them under a press until the glue dries. We secure the back to the long legs with small nails. This detail will give the entire structure additional rigidity. In a similar way (from glued boards of the same size or plywood) you should make a seat.

Children's furniture should not only be comfortable and light, but also completely safe for the child. Therefore, after assembling the chair, it must be processed, varnished or painted. When playing with his furniture, the baby will move it and turn it over. All surfaces, edges and joints must be thoroughly sanded using sandpaper or grinder, make sharp corners rounded.

Several layers of drying oil will create protective covering wood, will extend its service life. Afterwards you can start painting. Choose light or bright colors for the decor of children's furniture; paints that are wear-resistant will not peel off. A layer of colorless varnish on the paint will help securely fix the paint. water based.

High chair for baby

Such an original chair can be made using simple drawings, or even without them, from a lightweight (715 g) material - plywood. The chair has small sizes, namely:

  • product height – 360 mm,
  • height to seat – 180 mm,
  • seat – 190x240 mm,
  • back – 115x235 mm.

You can make a test model out of cardboard to see if a highchair of this size will suit your child. If this product is small, increase it by the required factor and feel free to get to work.

Materials and tools

  • Plywood 8 mm thick.
  • You can assemble the chair using spikes or simply screws, if desired.
  • Feather drills, jigsaw.
  • Sandpaper.
  • PVA glue.
  • Drill with screws for connecting parts.
  • Clear varnish.

Operating procedure

  1. Based on the data or your measurements, draw a side part for the chair with a pencil on a piece of plywood.
  2. Drill decorative holes using feather drills. Large ones - using a jigsaw.
  3. So that the second sidewall turns out exactly the same as the first, finished part Place it on the plywood and outline it with a pencil. We cut it out the same way.

  1. We mark the back, seat and parts that give the chair rigidity and prevent the sides from loosening.
  2. When all the parts of the chair are ready, it is necessary to make them absolutely smooth, rounded, carefully sand the surfaces and especially the cut points.
  3. We assemble the chair using glue and fasten the joints with screws.
  4. At the final stage we are decorating the chair. Cover it with several coats of stain if you want it darker, or paint it a bright color and top it off with a coat of water-based varnish.

With a little imagination and your own drawings, you can change the appearance and finish of the high chair, and also make a table for a child of a similar design. Your child will appreciate it.

To make the baby’s life more comfortable, many parents purchase special furniture for everyone life situations. For example, a children's high chair is used to decorate a play area, a workplace, and is a necessary piece of children's furniture that is also used for feeding the baby. The cost of such a device is quite high, and the choice among materials and models is even greater. But there is a solution to this situation - a children's chair made of plywood or boards. The material, tools and fasteners for making this product are quite accessible - they can be found in any hardware store or even at home. Particular attention should be paid to this question: how to make a children's high chair with your own hands?

The easiest way is to build a wooden chair. This option has many advantages that relate specifically to the type of material:

  • The material is easy to process
  • The cost of wood is not that high
  • The aesthetic appearance of a product made from this material is initially acceptable without additional coloring or decoration
  • Wood product is completely environmentally friendly

Let's consider what components and consumables you need to make a children's wooden highchair with your own hands. In addition to the main material you will need additional elements, without the use of which quality product It just won't work:

  • Fastening of parts can be done using furniture glue, carpentry nails or small self-tapping screws
  • Sometimes metal corners are used to strengthen the structure
  • Often the seat and back are upholstered with foam rubber, which is covered with fabric
  • To hide the places where parts are fastened using self-tapping screws, you need to buy special plastic covers
  • There are also rubber and plastic pads for the legs so that they do not scratch the flooring

For processing, you may need wood stain or varnish. Sometimes a wooden chair is painted with eco-friendly paint. Such measures are not necessary, the main thing is that the baby does not get hurt due to a poorly treated surface of the product.

What parts need to be made

First, sketches and drawings are prepared, regardless of whether the chair for the child will be made of plywood, chipboard or wooden boards. Only then, using a jigsaw, are the parts cut out from which the product itself will be created. There are not so many of them, but without one of them, the made chair will not be so strong:

  • Required to have top, bottom, front and side bars
  • Four legs
  • Middle crossbar
  • Seat surface

If one of the parts is missing, the product will not be reliable and will not last long or will be completely unusable. You can think over your own option for arranging the chair. The same presence of parts is required to construct a high chair. Distinctive feature Such a product is that the high chair can be combined with a table, that is, it turns out to be transformable furniture.

Plywood construction

High chair plywood is the most affordable material. In addition, it is much easier to make a plywood chair with your own hands, even if the master is new to this business. The main thing is to clearly formulate a sequence of actions and carry out preparatory measures:

  • At the very beginning, it is important to prepare drawings and connection diagrams. With their help, the type of future product, as well as the dimensions, are determined.
  • It is also important for a highchair to ensure comfort of use, so you need to determine the possibilities for its further use.
  • First, the base is made, that is, the stool, and then all other parts are attached to it.
  • You should cut plywood very carefully, as it tends to tear or break. At the same time, it is not enough to simply cut out the parts - their edges need to be properly processed.
  • Any small chair requires specific handling measures so that the child does not get hurt during operation.

A constructed chair can be considered ready only when all stages are fully completed. The finished product is processed according to all requirements, strength and reliability are tested. Additional finishing may be present, especially if it is a high chair.

In any case, a self-made chair made of wood, as well as its derivative materials, can be further modernized and remodeled. The cost of such a product will be much lower than in the store. You can choose the design yourself, using all kinds of materials for decoration. This product will last long years, while parents will not worry about the health of the baby’s posture, and the child himself will have his own place to study.

A lady acquaintance once asked one of the founders of the Encyclopedia Denis Diderot: at what age should one begin raising a child? “How old is yours?” – he asked in response. “Oh, he’s only one day old!” The philosopher shrugged: “In that case, you’re already a day late.”

A child will need a high chair not on the first day of his life, but when the baby begins to sit up independently, at about 6 months. But its role in the formation of the personality of a new person is by no means small. Firstly, the formation of the musculoskeletal system and correct posture begins on the chair. Secondly, from the high chair the child learns to handle things. This is his first property that is not a toy. Children who grew up on the lap of their mother or grandmother, on average, get along worse with others and realize their abilities less well.

The interests of parents also, of course, cannot be discounted. Feeding a small child often brings out a storm of emotions that parents may simply find exhausting at the moment. Feeding something that is spinning like a spinning top on your lap, calmly and kindly, costs a lot of effort; the child feels it and only gets more excited, which does not benefit him in any way. In addition, you need to protect clothes, carpets, and furniture from volleys of porridge, soup or puree.

Therefore, out of a fairly large number of varieties of children's chairs, the first in importance and time to start using is a high chair. A little later, after about another 4-6 months, he will need a play/work chair. We will deal with them in this order.

General requirements

To make a useful and comfortable high chair for your baby with your own hands, you first need to take ergonomics into account.

First, a chair for children younger ages should not be too soft: In order for a child’s skeleton to grow correctly and muscles to develop, his body must feel reliable support. It is advisable to make the play chair generally rigid, but on the high chair and work chair, relatively thin soft pads on the seat and back are needed. A gaming chair and a work chair are most often the same, so what should we do?

You can combine these conditions by sewing cushions of the following structure according to the size of the seat and back (from bottom to top): canvas or burlap – padding polyester 5-7 mm – flannel, calico or flannel – decorative fabric. To secure them, you will have to sew on straps that tie/fasten under the seat or behind the back, but this makes making the chair itself and caring for it easier.

Second, avoid plastics. The safety of polyethylene has now been unconditionally confirmed for children's items. high pressure(produced without the use of catalysts) and PET, but there are no suitable blanks from them for home craftsmanship. PVC seat upholstery is a relic of the past: when there were no diapers, without it diaper rash in babies was more common.

The next point is the size of the chair. The table of recommended sizes of children's chairs for games and activities is shown in Fig. The main parameter for choosing it is the growth group. The back height is obtained by subtracting the seat height from the total height of the chair; in a high chair it must be determined separately, because his seat is raised for the mother's comfort. The table has been compiled for child care institutions; the dimensions of a chair for a child in a family can be found more accurately and simply: we look carefully at who he matches in height and build; about eyes, eyebrows, etc. disputes later. Then the prototype parent shows which chair she/he is most comfortable in, we take the dimensions from it and multiply by 0.55. A child on such a seat will be fine from about a year to 4-5.

Note: Based on the above, all dimensions of the product samples given below are subject to adjustment if necessary.

Materials

What to make a high chair for a little one is also an important question. It is better not to use metal at all, or in small quantities (for example, fasteners) and so that the child does not have access to it. Children's bodies are generally more resilient than adults, but babies' skin is very sensitive. This is determined by the instinct of self-preservation: what is simply slippery and a little cold for an adult is a danger signal for a child. Since he himself cannot yet avoid her, he has to appeal to his parents. Those who have children know how. But they don’t always understand why, and that’s what makes them cry out loud.

For example, in Fig. on the right is the erroneous use of steel fasteners.“Intensive use of corners” not only does not strengthen the structure, contrary to the claims of its author, but it is also dangerous for the baby. An adult’s finger will go unnoticed in the corner with a self-tapping screw, but the baby may get scratched. In general, children don’t mind scratches, but if he is regularly placed in something that bites for feeding, then how will this chair affect the child’s psyche? The question is rhetorical.

Processing and finishing

So, we are left with practically only wood, MDF and laminated chipboard of class E0 in terms of phenol emission. In a high chair for a very young child, it is still better to use hardwood or MDF, they are completely chemical-free. Hypersensitivity to pine resin or traces of phenol-containing compounds occurs in about 1 in 400,000 babies, but how can you be sure it's not yours? It is impossible to identify in advance.

A highchair for babies is exposed to external chemical influences of approximately the same nature and to the same extent as a kitchen stool, but the sanitary and hygienic requirements for it are much stricter. Therefore, before assembly, the parts of a wooden highchair must be treated with a water-repellent and bactericidal composition, and the finished product must be covered with a protective layer.

There is also almost no alternative here: impregnation is a water-polymer emulsion or, instead, PVA diluted three to four times with water. Coverage – acrylic lacquer water based. There is no reliable evidence of complete safety for children of other compositions for processing/finishing furniture. Be especially wary of stains; Children's furniture with varnish is best left as is. Design and decor in in this case factors are by no means determining.

About plywood

When making a high chair for the firstborn from wood, an amateur craftsman (who may be taking on furniture for the first time in his life) will have to face a number of technological difficulties, see below, respectively. section that cannot be overcome without a workshop and special tools. Plywood can help out; You can use it to do almost everything at home. But not every one. Simple birch (not waterproof and not baked) and also simple construction or packaging are definitely suitable. The latter is covered with so-called veneer. pine trees cut down in winter. Dried pine already contains almost no resins, and in the process of making plywood, their remains are completely removed. Specified species plywood is made with casein glue, which is absolutely safe for children. They are given moisture resistance and additional strength by the impregnation described above, but twice: a second time after complete drying (about a day) of the initial one.

About the glue

Due to its combination of qualities, PVA is most suitable for gluing and gluing in the manufacture of children's furniture. Modern furniture pur-glues are much stronger, but also more expensive; for a product whose service life does not exceed 5-7 years, the first is unimportant, but the second can “bite”. But PVA has the following advantages:

  • Absolutely harmless and safe, which has been proven by more than half a century of experience. As they say, at least eat it; even if the liquid gets into the eyes, it is washed off without any residue with water, if you rinse it immediately.
  • PVA drips can be easily cut off with a mounting knife, and their remains can also be easily sanded clean.
  • The PVA joint can be separated by warming it up properly with an ordinary household hairdryer. This is important if the high chair needs to be disassembled and stored until the next addition to the family. Also, if you need to replace its individual parts as the child grows, see below.

The very first high chair

The most commonly used designs for chairs for feeding children are the following, in order of increasing complexity of manufacture:

  1. Stands/holders – boosters – for feeding the baby on an adult chair, hard and soft;
  2. Typical (classic) home folding high chairs;
  3. Children's transforming sets and “growing” (for growth) chairs;
  4. Stationary chairs for feeding babies.

The latter are used either in children's institutions for the youngest, or in wealthy households with excess living space. In both cases, the chair requires high strength: in children's homes it will be used by many generations, and wealthy owners care about prestige and also design. As a result, a stationary chair for feeding children turns into a fairly complex product, the manufacture of which requires special tools and production conditions; for an example, see the drawings in fig.

Boosters

These are attachments or devices for feeding a child on a chair and at a table for adults. Rigid booster chairs (the first 3 from left to right are shown in the figure) save space in small apartment, therefore quite popular.

However, it is impossible to make them fully compliant with the requirements of children's ergonomics. The second is for children from 6 to 9-12 months. they are of little use. Third, soft attachments to an adult chair (leading manufacturers invest a lot of money in their development) do not provide a complete guarantee that an angry fidget, delighted with his favorite juice, will not fall on his side along with himself, the booster and his dad’s chair.

Much more practical are soft boosters for feeding babies, which are no longer chairs, but something like a kangaroo pouch, on the right in the top pic. They cannot be used constantly; there is a risk of ruining the child’s posture. But at the dacha, picnic or on a trip, the pocket for feeding - the booster will be very useful, especially since it will take up almost no space in mom’s bag.

Making a soft booster for feeding a child is already a more feminine task, because... it is sewn; the pattern is shown in Fig; they are given without allowances for processing.

Note: the slings are wound from the sides of the cape onto the back of the chair from under the bottom, brought out through the openings and tied or fastened.

Home classics

How the familiar folding high chair for feeding babies at home is constructed, and its dimensions are shown in Fig. Materials - timber 40x20, 75x20 (footboard and leg ties), 16x25 (backrest slats, seat apron, tabletop frame), board 100x20 (inserts into the frame of the front legs) and plywood 6-8 mm (seat, tabletop). Assembly, except for hinges, is on confirmats (furniture screws) 60x6.

The connections marked in red are hinged: the table tilts up, and the frame of the rear legs is pressed against the front ones. The bolt heads (M6-M8) are on the inside and covered with plugs, red mark with an exclamation mark. The seat is hung on the front support bar on card hinges.

To fold the chair, first lift the table and move the frame of the rear legs slightly back. Then the seat lowers itself, and the frame of the rear legs is pushed forward until it stops - the chair is folded. And when unfolded, the entire kinematics of this chair locks without additional clamps according to the principle of a dead center, and let the little eater wriggle there as he wants - the chair will stand under him.

The only technological difficulty in the manufacture of this chair is the joining of blanks for the side frames of the front legs on dowels (lamellas) in the mustache or dowels. But you can get around it if you make the front frame of plywood, see below. Its operational drawback is that the thickness of the package is more than 10 cm. For a pantry in a small apartment or a closet in the hallway, this can be too much. And here plywood comes to the rescue, see below.

Transformers and growing

Transformable children's chairs for all ages are on sale, 3 positions. on the left in Fig. They are really convenient and functional, but technologically complex: some of the necessary parts can only be made in a factory workshop. Accordingly, the cost of such chairs is quite high.

For repeating with your own hands, a more accessible set is a chair with a table, on the right in Fig. Which is what many people do, but they immediately discover that a set with an upside-down table takes up more space in the apartment than a children’s high chair and table separately.

But the main thing is that this building is unhygienic. When the child sits down at the table, the edge of the large tabletop closest to the floor in the feeding position will be literally under his hands. And also - the undersides of the legs in the 6-12 month position, which have now become legs, and even awkwardly protruding upward.

There are no materials that do not scratch or cause microcracks. It is impossible to remove ingrained dust from the floor, which is what microbes need. Changeling kits for small children have been on sale relatively recently, but there have already been cases when they became foci of infection. Self-made ones from wood only make the danger worse.

The epidemic of fashion for transformable furniture (in this case there is no other way to say it) has given birth to real monsters, see fig. on right. When the child reaches table age, the chair is simply... sawed off, and the former supporting pyramid is turned over and becomes a table. Everything is clear about the hygiene of a large countertop, see above. As with a feeding table that is too narrow: there will be no food on the mother and on the floor only if a specially programmed robot is sitting on the chair.

And first of all, put yourself in the child’s place: there is a rigid fence on all sides. All that remains, as they say, is to put him on a chain. Secondly, a large table will be unusually rolly. Well, have you ever seen tables for neat adults whose legs converge downwards? It’s funny, of course, but whoever starts this at home will probably not be laughing.

“Growing” chairs

In general, if we're talking about O small child, it is better not to experiment with transformable furniture, excluding proven folding structures. For example, let’s take “growing” chairs, see fig. left. You can really sit on this from a simpleton to his dad, but it won’t be quite comfortable at any age. And in order to adapt the chair for growth for feeding, it will have to be turned into a product comparable in complexity to a stationary chair for babies.

How to take everything from plywood

High chairs for babies are often made of plywood. Many homemade designs turn out to be quite practical and good looking, on the left in Fig. However, once the need has passed, it is hardly possible to adapt them for something else, first. Second - see on the right in Fig. laid out parts. Material waste - by eye no less than 60% Although good plywood You can buy it for 300 rubles per sheet 1550x1550, anyway, it would be advisable to do without crooked scraps that are now useless.

This is where it’s time to realize that an adult folding board chair made of plywood can be easily adapted for feeding a baby, see next. rice. Dad's for fishing or mom's garden, depending on who is in charge in the family. In terms of sanitation and hygiene, it is better, of course, to make this chair right away for the little one, and then adult use let him in when he grows up.

From the remainder of cutting out opening A, you will get 2 struts for a child’s table with L-shaped legs; You will need to cut grooves for them in the sides of the chair. To feed a child, it is advisable to add a fabric back to such a chair: it will not reduce the comfort for adults, and it will not interfere with the folded chair hanging on the wall. A small tabletop is attached to struts on piano or card hinges, then the feeding table will also fold into a compact package.

Note: It is better to measure the dimensions of the struts using a ready-made, unfolded chair. This will be easier and more accurate than fiddling with trigonometry.

Another folding chair of the same type is shown in Fig. on right. It is smaller, 500x750 when folded. It’s not bad because from a sheet of plywood 1550x1550 there are exactly 6 of them, and the length fits into the trunk of almost any car. The letter w indicates the cutting width. In general, look at your child, yourself and your needs.

Older chairs

At the age of about one year, the child will already need a chair on which he can sit down, move it, and rearrange it. Chairs for small children in the age category following babies are play chairs (on the left in the figure below) and work/class chairs, in the center. Working chairs for children differ from play chairs primarily in their armrests; They are necessary for the child to develop correct posture. Then, the seat height of the work chair can be immediately taken based on the oldest person. preschool age, i.e. up to 400 mm. In this case, you need a step; preferably repositionable. Approximate dimensions highchairs for babies of the “second stage” are given on the right, but, as mentioned above, they need to be specified according to the child.

Drawings of chairs for older children are given below. rice. On the left is the gaming simplest design. The legs are the optimal length for a child aged 12-36 months who often plays on the floor. Fasteners – wood screws 40x4.2.

High chair for a child “like an adult’s”

The chair on the right is more complicated; its parts need to be marked on a grid and grooves cut to connect them. But it is universal, playable and working. The small protrusions of the sidewalls above the seat are enough to prevent a normally active child from sitting down with half of his butt hanging in the air. The seat height of 400 mm is the maximum for very young children. It can be made minimal first, approx. 220 mm, and then change the sidewalls as they grow; It will take a little labor and plywood, but mom will have something to say to dad on occasion. So, if dad is prudent, it is better to immediately cut the sidewalls for growth.

This chair is basically easy to assemble, like a puzzle. In the mobile version, say, for trips to the country, you can leave it like that. But with constant use, the chair will soon become loose, no matter how tight the joints were initially. Therefore, it is better for a child of this kind to glue his home chair with PVA. Dismantling, if necessary, put into storage - see above, about glue.

Finally, there is a category of children who, having barely realized themselves in this world, want everything to be like an adult. This is generally a useful quality, but dad will have to work harder on a chair and other furniture for the child. The design and dimensions of a highchair “like an adult’s” are shown in Fig. on right. A wooden chair of this design will require quite complex technological techniques, but even in this case plywood will come to the rescue, see next. chapter.

Video: example of a simple DIY mini-chair

Technology and plywood

To make a high chair for children from wood, you need to know or will have to master how to make some carpentry joints: on dowels, using dowels (lamellas) and tongue and groove. How they are produced, using examples of carpentry, see the videos, arranged in order of increasing complexity:

Video #1: dowel connections

Video #2: corner connection with dowels for frame structures (bursting corners)

Video #3: tongue-and-groove connection

Video #4: direct keyway connection for joining board panels

As you can see, the houses are simple hand tools Only pos. can be done with sufficient quality. #1. Pos. #2 and #3 for a novice carpenter will turn out by hand with ease, and for poses. #4 and a good professional can't do without a workshop and special equipment. And now - shhh! - all this can be done at home by a “complete teapot”, using only a jigsaw and a little chisel. If the parts blanks are assembled with glue from 3 layers of plywood, the thickness is, respectively, 1/3 of the required one. Among other things, this technology makes it possible to assemble parts of complex shapes from small-sized fragments, which makes it possible to create denser parts, i.e. cut the material economically.

How straight and angular tongue-and-groove joints are made in this way is shown in pos. 1 and 2 fig. resp. If the tenon is made trapezoidal with rounded corners, then the strength of the joint will increase several times, i.e. will be sufficient for adult furniture. This technology is not used in production - it’s a hassle and therefore unprofitable, but at home it’s better than buying or renting a machine for 60-100 thousand rubles.

To glue a package of blanks into a PVA part, you also do not need any special devices:

  • Lay plastic film on a flat floor or table.
  • Both surfaces to be glued are coated with a thin layer of glue; It's better to use a brush.
  • Leave the adhesive layers until they are semi-dry and tack-free, when the adhesive film begins to become translucent at the edges.
  • Place the blanks in a bag and press them.
  • Cover the bag with another layer of film and place pressure on it from a dispersed load (books, for example) at a rate of at least 20 kg per 1 square meter. m of glued area.

Note: because The blanks in the bag may “float away” a little during gluing; they need to be cut with an allowance of 1-2 mm for finishing.

The tongue-and-groove corner joint must be reinforced with self-tapping screws with a diameter of no more than 0.5 times the thickness of the tenon, a pair per tenon. For example, if a part is 15 mm thick and consists of 3 layers of 5 mm each, then the diameter of the hardware is 2-2.5 mm. Glue is applied to the tenon and groove; the first is inserted into the last, as soon as the glue begins to come off (after 2-3 minutes), and immediately the connection is tightened with hardware.

How to tighten screws

In the above and all other cases of fastening parts with self-tapping screws, it is necessary to pre-drill blind holes for them with a diameter of the body (rod) of the self-tapping screw without threads and a depth of 2/3 of the length of its threaded part. A hole for the screw head is also selected in advance. After screwing, the head is covered with putty made from sawdust of the same plywood on the same PVA; Up to 2.5-3 volumes of sawdust can be added to 1 volume of glue.

Finally

Well, now on to the new thing - new impressions and bon appetit. Just don’t throw porridge in celebration, my parents tried.