Free Plan: Burlap-Covered Window Seat
A 1912 cedar chest that works as a bench, a linen store, and a moth-proof box.
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- Cedar carcase cut list
- Burlap and oak strip pattern
- Safe hinged lid with stay
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Download didn't start? Get the plan here.The window seat is drawn up. Here is where the rest of the room comes from.
- 16,000 plans, each with a cut list, measurements and step-by-step instructions. Furniture, shop jigs, outdoor builds, beginner to advanced.
- What to print first: search the library for a blanket chest or a hall bench. Same cedar box underneath, same hinged lid, one more cut list.
- Sold through ClickBank with a 60-day money-back guarantee. Look through a dozen plans, and if it isn't for you, you get your money back.
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This one is from 1912, and it does three jobs at once. It is a bench under a window, a chest for linens, and a cedar-lined box — cedar being the traditional answer to moths long before anyone sold a spray for it.
The construction is honest carpentry. A cedar box, inner posts at the corners, feet, a padded hinged lid, then burlap stretched over the outside with mitered oak strips laid on top in a diamond pattern. It looks like upholstery. Underneath, it is a box.
The plan covers the reinforced cedar carcase, the inner posts and floor cleats, the fabric direction and both strip widths for the lattice, the padded lid, and the lid stay that keeps it from slamming shut.
Project at a Glance
- Difficulty
- Intermediate (carcase work, a hinged lid and upholstery)
- Main materials
- Cedar boards for the box, pine or oak inner posts and cleats, oak strips for the lattice, burlap, brass screws, glue, finish
- Build time
- Several weekends, plus finish
- Tools needed
- Table saw or miter saw, drill and driver, chisels, clamps, staple gun, sandpaper and finish supplies
- Safety
- Hinged lid — fit positive lid stays; see the lid note below
- Source
- Popular Mechanics Handbooks, 1912 (public domain)
Before the glue sets:
Run a tape from corner to corner both ways across the clamped carcase. Equal diagonals means square. If one reads long, ease the clamps and push that long corner in until the two numbers match, then let it cure exactly there. A box out of square by an eighth of an inch is invisible on the bench and obvious the day the lid stands proud at one corner — or the day a straight oak strip has to cross a face that has quietly turned into a parallelogram.
A piece like this is a full furniture build rather than a weekend project: a carcase, a lid, a mechanism, and a decorative surface, all in one. Finishing one changes what you think you are capable of.
What usually follows is a bigger appetite than the plan pile can feed. Having the next project already drawn up is how one build becomes many.
What one of the plans looks like
One plan, front to back
Every plan in the library comes with the same three things: a cut list you can total before the lumber run, measurements on every part so nothing gets scaled off a photo, and step-by-step instructions from rough stock to finish. That is the layer this window seat plan gave you, sixteen thousand more times.
The library covers furniture, shop jigs, outdoor builds and small projects, beginner to advanced. It works with a few hand tools or a full shop, and you keep it for good.
Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
Also worth a look: the technique layer
Woodworking Secrets is a printed book on layout, cutting, joinery and finishing, the part a plan leaves out. The publisher sends it at no charge and you cover the shipping. It ships to US addresses. On the order page there is a box for a trial membership that is already ticked — untick it if you only want the book.
See the book →