Porch Swings

If there is anything that says summer, it is sitting on the front porch swings, sipping lemonade. Making and sitting on porch swing is a great old tradition in my family. Since the time of my grandfather, every generation has made new handmade front porch swings. A generation is about how long the wooden swings last. We don't make cheap wicker swings like some people do, and we disdain buying plastic porch swings. Instead, we make all wood porch gliders same as we have for generations.

This might sound boring to some of you. After all, who wants to sit down with his dad nowadays and make a new porch swing. For me, however, it was almost a right of passage. The front porch swings, you see, were my first project. I was about eight years old at the time, and one summer my dad looked at our front porch and knew that a lot of work needed to be done. The swing porch wasn't the only thing that needed work either. The rails needed to be redone, one of the stairs needed to be replaced, and the whole thing needed to be painted. As a matter of fact, the whole front of the house was in need of a new paint job.

I had been wanting to help my dad on the project for a long time. Nonetheless, no matter how much I asked, he had always told me that I was too young and that I could do it in another year or two. With the porch swings, however, he finally decided to let me work with him. Although it wasn't the most urgent project, nonetheless it was the one my father decided to start with. I guess it was because he really loved his swinging. The porch wouldn't look right without a porch swing, but the one we had was so decrepit that it was barely safe to sit on.

Making bench swings is a little bit difficult. If you are making a normal hammock swing, all you need to do is knot some rope together. With porch swings, however, it is another matter. They must be very well put together. You see, they have to be supported completely by the rope that they hang on. When you are talking about a bench, that is pretty impressive. Porch swings have a tremendous amount of torque put on them when people sit in the middle, so all of the joints need to be perfect and the wood needs to be well selected. Fortunately, me and my dad were up for the job.