I always love it when I visit someone and they have a porch swing. A swing is one of the most wonderful things you can put on a porch. Rocking chairs are pretty great too…but swings can be shared and in a way that makes them more versatile. There’s no need to get into details right now as the thought of relaxing in one of these things is enough to inspire you to want to build your own porch swing. For that you’re going to need plans and that’s when we come into play.

You can definitely find ready-made swings in stores but they rarely look like this and those that do tend to be quite expensive. With the porch swing plans we found on shanty-2-chic you can build everything from scratch. It’s not a particularly difficult project and you can think of it as an opportunity to recycle an old wooden pallet or to use some of the leftover wood you keep in the garage. In any case, check out the tutorial and make this project your own.

There’s another wonderful porch swing that we want to show you. This one also comes from shanty-2-chic. The design is pretty similar to that of the first project we shared today, with a few exceptions. The wood was painted instead of being stained and the back has a different pattern. You can customize your porch swing with any color you want. We really like the simplicity of this grey tone and the way it combines with those chic accent pillows.

Let’s check out some of the basic things you might need if you want to build a porch swing. According to the porch swing plans from simplydesigning.porch, we list of supplies includes things such as wood boards with different shapes and dimensions, rope (you could also use metal chain if you prefer it), eye screws and bolts, washers, screws, a drill, a saw, a sander and stain or paint. When you’re done building the swing, add the finishing touches: a pair of accent pillows and a seat cushion for more comfort.

The type of swing featured on themerrythought is probably the most basic kind of all and isn’t necessarily for porches in particular. You could hang this pretty much anywhere you want. The plans are simple. Just take a piece of wood and some rope, drill four holes in the board, one in each corner and then run some rope through them on each side. Make sure the knot is sturdy and secure. Check out the full tutorial for some tips.

Now this is a porch swing built for comfort. Doesn’t it look charming? That beautiful backrest is wonderful and, as you’ve probably guessed, it’s made from a headboard. What a great way to repurpose old furniture into new and creative pieces. The seat can be made out of a reclaimed pallet. Check out the porch swing plans featured on therusticpig to find out all the details and to figure out how you can personalize this project. Pick a nice paint color that complements your porch decor.

We love the simplicity of the porch swing shared on instructables. If you want to build something like this, you first have to gather all the supplies. After that, the next step is to sand the boards and after that to trace the template which you can do with the help of the porch swing plans in the tutorial. Make the holes in the armrests, round over the edges and then start assembling your new swing.

If you’d rather not waste time with all sorts of little details, check out these porch swing plans from instructables. The design is simple and a bit more heavy-dury than others we’ve seen so far. Other than that, the steps you need to follow in order to complete this project are pretty much the basic ones. The hardest part is getting started and hopefully we’ve inspired you enough to make this easy.

Instead of starting from scratch when building your new porch swing, perhaps you could repurpose some of the old things you’ve been keeping over the years, things such as an old headboard, some bed posts and maybe even some reclaimed wood boards. It’s exactly what the project featured on hometalk teaches. Actually, the swing shown here is actually more a sort of hanging daybed. It looks really cozy and comfortable and that’s what matters most.

Speaking of hanging daybeds, check out this cool project that we found on themerrythought. It describes the process of building a porch swing/ hanging bed out of reclaimed wooden pallets. The materials required, besides the pallets, include a few extra pieces of lumber, a mattress (or cushions), rope, a saw, a drill and a bunch of screws. The whole project is easy and can be completed in a short amount of time without any compromises.

This beautiful blue swing is also made of pallets. We found the plans for it on theholdabode. The key element here is the frame. Once you have it put together, everything starts to take shape. You’ll be using pallet boards to cover up the seat and backrest. Give them the right curves and forms can take a bit of time and precision and you can definitely skip these details in favor of a more linear design if you prefer it that way.

As it turns out, an old bed can offer a lot of inspiration and a lot of useful materials for building a porch swing. The headboard and footboard are the most important parts. In addition to these, you can also use the posts and some boards from the frame to complete the swing. It could look something like this. We found this elegant porch swing while browsing funcycled.

People aren’t the only ones that love relaxing on a porch swing on a beautiful day. The upholstered kind is particularly appealing to everyone so let’s check out porchdaydreamer to see how it’s all done. To upholster a porch swing you need a few simple things such as some outdoor fabric, foam, a staple gun, an iron, a tape measure and scissors. The process is pretty self-explanatory: you measure the seat, you cut the fabric, you iron it, you put the foam on the seat and then you staple the fabric tightly over it.

If you don’t necessarily want your porch swing to have a backrest (although we highly recommend it) you can check out the plans offered on bintihomeblog. This swing is basically nothing more than a wooden pallet hanging from a tree. The top boards were painted and that gives the swing a little bit of personality. It’s possible to increase comfort with cushions but there’d be nothing to rest them against.

A pallet swing with backrest is a more appealing idea and the design doesn’t have to get complicated at all which means you don’t have to make any big modifications to your plans. Check out palletfurniturediy for a clear description of the building process. You’ll see that it’s all pretty simple. You can use an unmodified pallet as a seat and a section of another pallet as the backrest.

As you’ve probably realized by now, building a porch swing is not exactly difficult. There is, however, a detail that we haven’t mentioned: the fact you also have to hang the swing. That’s easy to do if you have a roof to hang it from. If you want to put the swing in an uncovered area, you’ll need to build a support or, even better, a pergola. We found this awesome porch swing and pergola plans on sincerelymariedesigns and we just had to share them with you. They might exactly what you were looking for so check out the full project for more details.