Tyrolean chair

I’ve been making wooden furniture for about a year now. It started out of necessity; I wanted a bookshelf but couldn’t find one big enough to house the piles of books we had in what seemed like every room of the house. So a friend and I made a trip to Anderson McQuaid in Cambridge, Mass. to buy some lumber. He had a nightstand project and a truck. I had a head full of ideas.

The success of the bookshelf project led to a stereo console made of cherry wood, a picture frame, and finally this rustic chair. Tyrol is a region in the Alps encompassing parts of Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. These chairs were traditionally made of local woods using simple hand tools. No nails and little or no glue. The trick is to fit the pieces together at the right angles and with just the right amount of support to make the chairs sturdy. Often, no finish was used.

I first encountered a Tyrolean chair in Fussen, Germany, a lovely town bordering the Alps. I was struck by the ingenuity of its construction, so I snapped some photos and promised myself I’d give it a go when I got home. I bought a couple planks of reclaimed, wide-board yellow pine, which seemed appropriate. It took me several weeks of tinkering, sawing, and sanding, but it turned out solid, straight, and sturdy. Today, it offers respite to anyone in the house who tires of scanning the many books on the bookcase I built a few months earlier.