How to Build an Outdoor Sectional
Outdoor furniture can cost an arm and a leg. Since I’m not interested in selling my firstborn to afford nice furniture, we often build it ourselves- and we do the same thing with homeowners on Knock It Off. We wanted to build homeowners Barb and Derek a sectional for their sunroom that would have a high end feel and not the price tag.
Doesn’t it look great in their finished sunroom?
We are huge fans of giving credit where credit is due- Ana White is the queen extraordinaire of all things DIY furniture! Her blog is full of FREE furniture plans and one of her projects inspired our outdoor sectional.
We didn’t use Ana’s plans exactly, because we wanted it a certain size for Derek and Barb’s room, so we came up with our own version, but if you want to make one, you should follow her step by step directions with awesome pictures!
Ana’s plans for an outdoor sectional can be found HERE and you can download a PDF with everything you’ll need.
A few tips for making one of your own…
# 1- Have the right tools!
You don’t need anything extravagant to build this sectional, but a strong drill, a Kreg Jig, and a Chop Saw are essential.
A Kreg Jig is a tool that makes pocket holes for you- basically a must-have in the DIY furniture world! We used one when we built our farmhouse table, outdoor table, garage lockers and so much more.
Here’s how it works…
You can check out Kreg’s website here (and no, this isn’t sponsored, I just really love this tool!!)
# 2- Have a friend to help!
This is a two person job. There are lots of times where you’ll need one person to hold and the other to attach something.
# 3- Use Exterior paint or Stain with a Sealant
For our sectional, we used exterior paint, but watered it down a bit, so we could still see some of the wood grain. It’s a little trick if you’re in a time crunch. It spreads easily, like a stain, but you don’t have to do an extra coat of sealant. We’ve learned lots of quick trips doing rooms for Knock It Off.
This project looks amazing and expensive, but it’s really simple and a good first project if you’re wanting to try your hand at building. All the cuts are straight and the plans are simple (you can thank Ana White for that!)
If you want to see how this sectional looks in the room, click HERE to watch the full episode online.
Hopefully this project encourages you to take that first step and give building your own furniture a try! It will save you a ton of money (maybe even your firstborn!!)
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It looks amazing!
I saw that show and wondered what that blue thing was. Thanks for sharing. This does inspire me to try my hand at furniture building, it looks very doable. Since I live in an apartment, I just need to find a work space, hmmmm?
I would love to build some furniture for our deck, something like an androck chair would be nice. I love the stain on this, looks great!
I love this and want to build one for me! Where did you get the cushions for the seats?
PS–I love your show and learn a lot from it. Thanks for all the hard work you do!
Hey Thanks!! We got the plain cushions at IKEA on Clearance at the end of the season. Then, we just popped up the color with fun accent pillows from Homegoods!
Hey, I just wanted to check back in and let you know that we made this!!! It was our first build (it started off something like this: “Hey, honey, let’s build a couch. I’ll print off the plans and you go borrow a saw from someone.”) but now we’re both hooked. Your tip to use watered-down exterior paint was genius. It worked like a charm and made the painting go so fast. We’re actually using this in our living room and are loving it, and we get tons of compliments on it. Now I’m channeling my inner Monica and Jess to pull the rest of the space together! Thanks for the inspiration! Love you gals!
Looks great. What was the coat of this project
[…] Photo from East Coast Creative Blog […]
I love this!! It is on my to do list once Wisconsin decides to warm up. I checked out Ana’s plans but she uses 1x4s. Do you have a modified plan using 2x4s?
I want to try this! However, it looks like you made your sections out of 2X4’s instead of 1×4’s like Ana did. Is that correct? I want to build it with 2X4’s Where are your plans?
where are the directions or pattern?
Hi there Soma, there is a link about half-way down the post that takes you to a simple tutorial for the outdoor sectional.
Love this! Do you happen to have any plans for this version with 2x4s?
I keep arriving at this page trying to find the “hot to build outdoor sectional….”. I see the title but am able to find the plans or details anywhere. Please help.