How to build a Victorian Bay Window Seat with Storage
Filling up the entire bay in our front room with a window seat felt like quite a committing project, but the arguments have been stacking up:
1) Every time my wife encounters a window seat – in a house we are visiting, on the telly, or in a magazine – she goes all doughy-eyed and wishful. She wants one.
2) Our son loves climbing on top of the wooden chest that sits in our window and looking outside, something a window seat would be perfect for.
3) The headcount in our family will shortly be rising. This means a fresh influx of plastic-singing baby crap coming down from the attic. Trying to relax in a room filled with toys that start pumping out nursery rhymes when your foot accidentally brushes against them can be a challenge, and space under a window seat offers ideal out-of-sight storage.
So, a perch for children, toy storage, extra-seating, and a happy wife – the case was compelling. Internet research yielded a succession of staggeringly beautiful window seats with views over the pool, vineyard, manicured lawns, snow-capped mountains etc. Our outlook: parked cars and the old lady living opposite. But window seats can absolutely work in an urban setting; I mean the houses across the road are reasonably attractive!
The internet also threw up a fantastic step-by-step guide for the build. This breaks the process down into four stages: the frame, the front face, the top, and the finishing touches. Before I started I decided that I would not cut into the skirting board so as not to damage it if a future owner wanted to remove the seat. I also made sure that I would still be able to access broadband wires under the floorboards and power-points before fixing everything in place.
I wanted to create a sturdy seat that could bear a lot of weight and repeated jumping on by children. I started by building the frame out of 2x4 timber. The tricky but important bit here is ensuring the front and back are level (particularly when the floor almost certainly isn’t!)
The next stage was to build the front-face. I cut 6mm mdf sheet to size and fixed it to the frame using a combination of wood glue and nails.
I then cut some planed timber to size for the framing and stuck this to the mdf sheet before adding a couple of coats of white primer. The next job was to cut pieces plywood to form the top of the seat. I used 12mm plywood to provide the required strength.
After checking the sizes were correct I primed all the plywood pieces before fixing them to the frame. I also used a piano hinge to attach the back of the seat to the lid before screwing it down.
I attached a small bit of strip wood to provide a lip across the front, and a final bit of wooden quadrant trim to cover the gaps around to edges. Then I filled all remaining gaps and screw-holes with instant filler before sanding and painting with white eggshell.
The result is a bunch of very happy campers. The seat blends well into the room and has given us some extremely useful storage in a space that would otherwise remain empty.
Hello and Welcome
Our room is almost identical. I might just do this. Keep you informed.
Most importantly, where can I buy that rug?
Stephen
Go for it. I’m afraid I can’t answer the rug question as this particular one came from my Mother-in-Law’s garage! I think she’s had it for about 30 years.
Looks great. I’ve been looking for uk-based instructions on how to build a window seat and this looks ideal.
One question, I’ve been wondering how deep to make the seat and see that the front of your seat isn’t flush with the walls on either side. Would it be too deep of you did this?
Thanks Alex. You are exactly right. If I had made the seat flush with the walls it would have been very deep and extremely wide. This might suit some people, but for me, having the seat recessed into the bay was the best option. I felt it made it less obtrusive on the rest of the room, helps to maintain the original feel and dimensions of the space. It also gives the curtains a place to hang down to the floor! I guess much depends on the dimensions of your bay space. Cheers, Tom.
Hey Tom,
I’m planning on tackling this project over the weekend. Like you, I’m not going to remove the skirting board. Any tips on how to cut around it as accurately as possible?
Thanks so much!
Ollie
Hi Ollie
I’m afraid I don’t have a magic technique. Just a ruler, a coping saw, and a good eye!
Filler definitely came to my rescue when I did it.
Good luck with your project and thanks for visiting the site.
Tom
You mean scribing. That’s the technique of drawing a line to match the price you are fitting to a profile that is irregular or just not straight. You can use a compass, but just search How to scribe and you’ll see it’s quite easy. Use a jigsaw or coping saw to make you cut.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your post, really helpful. What power tools do you have that helped complete this? Table saw?
James
Hi James
I used a combi-drill and a drill-driver to put screws in and attach stuff to the wall.
I used a circular saw to cut some of the wood to the right size.
I think that’s it in terms of power tools.
Cheers, Tom.
Hi James
I used a combi-drill and a drill-driver to put screws in and attach stuff to the wall.
I used a circular saw to cut some of the wood to the right size.
I think that’s it in terms of the power tools I used.
Cheers, Tom.
Hi Tom, looking to do this soon however I have baseboard instead of molding do you think this will still work? Trying to come up with a plan. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks!
Hi Matt. Yes I think this could work. I didn’t use baseboard because a) I couldn’t find any that matched the height of the baseboard running around the rest of the room and b) even if I could I thought it would have looked too high across the front of the window seat. So long as you are happy with the way it looks, which is the most important thing, then yes, absolutely, go for it! Cheers, Tom.
Hi All,
If you want to cut the MDF/plywood to match you skirting board use a thin cotton reel with a pencil through the middle. Offer up your board to the skirting and trace the profile of the skirting with the cotton reel and pencil onto the MDF/plywood. Hope this helps
Hi, amateur here, trying to build a similar window seat this weekend! On your front frame how have you attached the full horizontals to the 5 smaller verticals?! I can’t get my head around it!
Hi Davide
You can’t see from looking at the photos, but i used screws – screwed in at an angle – on the inside of the frame. I also doubled this up with wood glue. Hope this helps and sorry for the delayed response.
Thanks, I ended up using steel angles into the verticals then up into the horizontals. Think it will work (well I sat on it and it held my 15 stone!)
We want to create one of these in our bay window recess and it looks very much like yours! Can I ask exactly how deep the seat on yours is? We’re wavering between 50cm and 60cm – trying to strike the balance between comfortable perch and not taking up too much room space! Thanks so much.
Hi Caroline. I can’t tell you exactly how deep my seat was because I recently moved out of that house. If I were to take a guess I’d say it was probably closer to 60cm than 50cm. However, what I can say is that the seat was just over two thirds the depth of the bay (you can see this in some of the pics). I think the fact that the seat was recessed into the bay a little bit, and did not sit flush with the wall on either side, meant that regardless of what depth it was it didn’t impinge upon the room. Hope that helps and good luck with your project.
Hi Tom, I’m making this after I was asked by a local elementary school to build one for children to sit and read. I’m volunteering my time so I can give a little back to the community. Thanks for the idea. I’ll send a photo upon completion.
Cliff
Great – can’t wait to see it. Good luck.
Hello, Tom! This is a lovely project and I am thinking to do the same on my bay window. I know this is a really silly question but you say that you use screws at an angle to join the horizontal and vertical frame together, can you tell me how you do this? Do you use any special tool for this? Thanks
Hi Claudia. Sorry I am replying very late. I basically just angled the screw with my hand and went for it. Having a drill-driver that fires the screws in easily helps. And because they weren’t visible on the finished product it didn’t really matter if it was a bit messy. However, if I were doing it properly there is a tool you can get called a pocket-hole jig that is specifically designed to allow you to place screws at an angle.
Hi Tom this looks great, we want to do this in our house. Do you remember how high you made the seat?
Hi Sarita
I’m afraid I don’t remember exactly and I have now moved out….though I do have memory of measuring the height of one of our kitchen chairs and basing it on that.
Good evening, here in Brazil (I’m Brazilian) we do not have the custom of doing this work in the windows, I find it very beautiful, in the bedroom windows can also be done? Is there any page that teaches but on the straight wall?
This good job! I’m planning to set up one in my residential house, hope it will enhance the aesthetics of the seating room.
Could I just ask Tom… the long length o2 4 x 2 going across the floorboards… did you screw that down to the floor or just secure to the skirting at each end? Thank you.
I screwed it to the floor.