Now that Adam is older and starting to be interested in, well, EVERYTHING, I wanted to build him a little stool so he could stand at the counter on his own. When I got on google and started looking at options, I learned that this is very much a thing and even has a name: a Leaning Tower.
There are several options for leaning towers. I wanted something relatively compact and also nice looking.
The mot popular ones for sale are pricey ($200+) and rather large. The best option I found was actually an Ikea hack!
The Happy Grey Lucky blog post has thorough instructions and I followed them almost exactly. There are several versions of this hack online, but I found this to have the cleanest lines and most sophisticated construction. It wasn’t complicated, but the design was simply better than most.
Assembling the Stool
The first step was to assemble the Bekväm stool, minus the top piece. Adam supervised.
Cutting the Wood
Once the stool was together, I got to work on cutting all the pieces of wood I’d need. All of the measurements are on Happy Grey Lucky’s blog.
Perhaps the most challenging part of making the stool was where to drill the holes. Again, not impossible or overly complicated, but required some attention. I made to sure to label the pieces so I’d know which went where.
Once all the pieces were cut and drilled, I was ready to start assembling the top part of the stool.
Assembly: Part 1
I was very careful to line everything up so it was as square as could be. I used my trusty square to help me!
When everything was screwed together, I had two beautiful side pieces. Marking the pieces made it much easier.
The last step was to put the two sides together and add the dowel. I also made sure to countersink the screws slightly because I planned on filling them later.
I filled the screw holes with wood filler and gave the entire thing a really good sand.
Painting
A lot of the Ikea hacks leave the stool in its natural wood. I much preferred the look of the white stool; not only because I love white, but also because I wanted to hide the screw holes.
I primed all the wood using a basic white primer and then painted it with some leftover trim paint I had lying around. Using spray paint would have been a lot easier and much more efficient. Painting the multiple sides was time consuming and really not a lot of fun. But I had the trim paint already so I didn’t want to buy new paint. I should have just spent the $6…
Assembly: Part 2
After the pieces were painted, I assembled everything together.
I’m very happy with the final product, and I think Adam is too!
