Stephens Step Stool Part I

My son, Stephen, inherited his current bed from his Uncle. It’s a standard twin size mattress with six (6) drawers below it. This leaves the mattress at a height which is a quick hop for an adult to get up onto and a big climb for an eight year old.

Stephens old stool is much the worse for wear.

Since receiving the bed Stephen has used a small stool he made in Nursery School as a step. The stool was a simple project designed for four your olds to assemble. It’s consists of a 12” x 12” piece of ¾” CDX plywood with four (4) 2” x 2” legs attached with two (2) 8d nails each. Frankly, it’s amazing the old stool lasted as long as it did.

Stephen has been struggling to get up into his bed since his old stool broke. When we found ourselves the only ones home one recent afternoon, we headed to the shop and began working on his new stool.

We began by looking at step stools online. Stephen took an immediate liking to Warton Esherick’s library Ladder. As much as I’d like to make one, time was off the essence, so I had to veto that plan. We ultimately settled on a traditional Shaker step stool.

Brian VanVreedes awesome version of Eshericks Library Ladder.

After looking at a few online, I remembered that there was a Shaker step stool in Rough Cut –Woodworking with Tommy Mac. We dug out my copy and used the cut list for overall dimensions and a basic parts list.

For Stephen, that’s where the boring part began, spending an hour feeding boards through the planer and jointer wasnt his idea of a good time.Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

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