Photo: Jim Franco
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Nobody says you have to build your own porch swing. You could buy one, as easy as icebox pie.
But wait.
Why not make it yourself? Because if ever a task offered its own reward, this one does, implying libertine leisure even as it demands intense rigor. Were you crafty enough, you could start from scratch—the dimensions measured twice and cut once, the mortise made just so, the tenon to match, the flathead brass screws micrometrically countersunk, the curve of a seat rail defined by pencil, formed by saw, and completed with drawknife and plane.
Let's say you're insufficiently crafty. But let's also say you're willing to hit the halfway mark between scratch-built and store-bought. Do an online search for "porch swing" and "kit," and marvel at the results: big, little, medium, freestanding, chain-mounted, oak, cedar, redwood, teak, Arts and Crafts, Mission, Adirondack, plantation.
The box arrives, and with it so does a bout of jitters. But keep at it. You'll get your groove, tools, and user melding in an almost musical pattern, a melody of accomplishment riding the rhythm of repetition—screwgun whir, mallet strike, sandpaper scritch, clamp creak—and finally silence, settling over what began as a notion and now has three dimensions.
But wait.
Why not make it yourself? Because if ever a task offered its own reward, this one does, implying libertine leisure even as it demands intense rigor. Were you crafty enough, you could start from scratch—the dimensions measured twice and cut once, the mortise made just so, the tenon to match, the flathead brass screws micrometrically countersunk, the curve of a seat rail defined by pencil, formed by saw, and completed with drawknife and plane.
Let's say you're insufficiently crafty. But let's also say you're willing to hit the halfway mark between scratch-built and store-bought. Do an online search for "porch swing" and "kit," and marvel at the results: big, little, medium, freestanding, chain-mounted, oak, cedar, redwood, teak, Arts and Crafts, Mission, Adirondack, plantation.
The box arrives, and with it so does a bout of jitters. But keep at it. You'll get your groove, tools, and user melding in an almost musical pattern, a melody of accomplishment riding the rhythm of repetition—screwgun whir, mallet strike, sandpaper scritch, clamp creak—and finally silence, settling over what began as a notion and now has three dimensions.
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