Rather than the basic flat seat and back with thick cushions I used on those early chairs, the starting point for this chair's
geometry is the tried and true Adirondack.
The chair seat is a pretty standard
20” wide and is sculpted to be a comfortable shape. Additional comfort can be
added with a seat cushion. It doesn't have to be thick or fancy to do the job, in fact the $10 stadium cushion sold pretty much everywhere
would do nicely.
The space for the chair is slightly
over 22” wide which leaves room at the sides for the supports that are key to the
chair functioning in several positions.
The slightly curved chair-back pivots, including folding forward
so the chair can be tucked away when in bed mode. The pipe that acts as the
hinge for this also extends beyond the chair sides to rest on the supports mentioned
in the previous paragraph. This combination of hing ends and support brackets replaces the back legs usually found on chairs.
(You know, so they don’t fall over backwards??)
The front of the seat is held up by a pair of traditional legs resting on the floor. These were necessary because the front of the seat extends too far beyond the bed structure to be supported the same way as the back. The bottom of these legs are radiused because the chair seat, which the legs are rigidly fastened to, will tilt at different angles depending on seating position, so flat-bottomed legs wouldn’t work very well.
How it all works:
To store the chair the back is
folded forward, more or less flat to the seat, and the chair pushed back on the
side supports to the furthest detente.
The ottoman is then slid under the chair. This tucks the whole thing away so it fits completely under the lowered bed.
To use the chair, the mattress and
center mattress support are raised and held in place with a simple strap and
hook. The chair is then pulled out to the second detente on the side supports and the back raised to
rest against the bottom of the raised mattress support. (This eliminates any
additional structure or mechanism, simplifying and lightening the whole
shebang.) This position keeps the seat bottom relatively horizontal and the back tilted
back from perpendicular a couple degrees and is the ‘sit up and eat’ position.
For a more relaxed seating position,
the chair is moved out one more detente. This tilts the seat bottom back about 10
degrees, very much like an Adirondack chair.
Still just resting on the bottom of the raised mattress support, the chair-back is
kept at about the same relative angle to the seat, 95 to 97 degrees, again very
much like an Adirondack chair.
One final detente keeps the same 10
degree seat bottom angle but reclines the back another 10 degrees or so for even more
relaxed sitting.
If I want to be any more relaxed then
that then that it’s time to make up the bed!
The exposed mattress platforms on
either side of the chair, in addition to being hinged access for the tank and
battery areas underneath, act as arm-rests and the large expanse (To the right in this drawing) all the way
to the side-wall under what will be the head of the bed, makes a pretty handy end table.
And now to the foot of the matter:
I’m a kick up the feet kind of guy
so an ottoman is in order. It has to fit under the chair when stored so that
dictates the size. I added a little curve and slant to the top to make it comfortable
in a number of positions and, by making the lid hinged and the base a box, I
have a place to store small heavy things like the collection of paperbacks and
magazines I always carry along.
This setup isn’t perfect and might be a little fiddly, but I think it’s a pretty good use of what I had to work with.
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