DIY Swing

Everybody needs a place for relaxation and a simple DIY swing can be a perfect place for relaxation in your home. Also, your kids will surely love this. The best thing about this project is that you don’t need expensive tools or professional knowledge to make this beautiful swing. Although we advise that you put this swing indoors or on a covered porch, you can put it outdoors also, but you have to use waterproof cloth then.

First we will check the needed materials for the project. You will need a dowel rod 36 inches long, 16 ft of cotton rope, 6 ft of cloth, two screw on carabiners and one screw hook.

First cut the cloth 6 ft long and 3.3 ft wide. Then take the cloth and fold it in half lengthwise, like in the picture below. Then measure 2.7 inches of one corner and mark the place and then use the ruler to connect that spot with the opposite corner. Use the scissors to cut the both sides of the cloth  following the formentioned line. Unfold the cloth and fold the 1/2 inch of the upper edge and iron it. Then fold another 1/2 inch and iron it again. Sew the folded part with sewing machine or by hand like in the picture below. Repeat the same procedure on the bottom edge of the cloth.

Turn the cloth for 90° and the longest edge must be on your left side. Fold every corner 1.5 inch like in the picture below and iron it. Then fold the whole edge 1.5 inch and iron it. Sew the edge with sewing machine or by hand two times. Repeat the same procedure on the opposite edge.

Take the dowel rod and drill two 0.4 inch holes through the rod on both sides of the rod. One hole on each side must be 2 inches from the edge of the rod and the other hole on each side must be 4 inches from the edge of the rod.

As an option you can paint or decorate the cloth like we did but that isn’t necessary. You can see how easy it is on the picture below.

Tie the knot on the rope and leave around 3 inches of rope behind the knot. Pull the rope through the hole on the rod closer to the edge and then through the sewed pockets on the cloth on one side. Then make a loose knot and pull the rope through the second hole on the rod on that side. Do the same thing in reverse order on the second part of the rod and cloth. Leave the knots loose until you hang the swing and then see if you need to move them in order to level the swing. Once the swing is leveled tighten the knots. When you are finished with pulling the rope through the rod and cloth, you only need to make a larger loop on the second end of the rope on which you will hang the swing.

The swing is finished and now it is time to install the hook and carabiners. Before we start with that part lets review what tools we need for the project. For this project we need a drill, sewing machine or sewing kit, iron and scissors. You can check the needed tools from the offer below.

If you want to mount a hook on a wooden beam then just drill a hole one size smaller than the screw on the hook and slowly screw the hook all the way in. If you want to mount a hook on the ceiling then you need to know what type of material is there. The type of material determines the type of anchor which must be used in order to safely use the swing. Don’t put a hook without anchor on any surface beside wood!

After the hook is installed you only have to put one carabiner on the hook and the other carabiner with the rope from the swing on the first carabiner and your new DIY swing is ready to use. Always put two carabiners like in the picture above because you can’t swing properly with just one carabiner on the hook.

As you can see, making your own DIY swing is an easy task and the cost of the material is really low and most of you already have most of materials in your homes. Don’t be afraid to try out this project, once you get started you will see that making stuff yourself is a lot of fun.