Can I have a hanging chair or swing?

January 23, 2018 11:17 AM

I would like to install a swing or a hanging chair in my kids' room. Is this a terrible idea and how will I know?

I would like to put either a hanging egg chair or something like this in our kids' room. I love the idea of a reading nook and their room is tiny so it would actually fit.

My husband thinks the ceiling will come crashing down and that it is a terrible idea. But I see them so much in blogs, etc. that I think this might not be true. But how will I know? Do I need an engineer? How exactly do you attach one? I am willing to get outside help!

For more info, it's a flat in an old Victorian house. Seems sound!

Any thoughts, advice or experiences?

posted by caoimhe to Home & Garden (18 answers total)

First step would be to go up in your attic and take a look at the beams over the room's ceiling, see if there are any big enough to be candidates for supporting this kind of weight.
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:21 AM on January 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

The rafters should be strong enough to hold up a child. Be sure you screw it into actual wood (called a stud), and not just pick any spot in the ceiling. The easiest way to get a stud finder, then when it beeps, you get a small roughly 2" long nail and hammer it into the ceiling. If it's easy to hammer in, then that's not a spot to put a swing. Where it is very hard to hammer in, that's where you put the screws to hold up the swing.

Be sure to check that the swing isn't smashing into walls and windows as even if the ceiling is strong enough, the walls may not be to survive a wild swinging kid.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:23 AM on January 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

I doubt the ceiling alone would support the weight. It might have to be attached to a truss or a joist.
posted by WizKid at 11:24 AM on January 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Lag bolts into the joist. You may need to drill pilot holes. Aim for a 4 to 1 factor of safety.

Make sure there’s horizontal room so nobody crashes into the side walls over and over again!
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:25 AM on January 23, 2018 [7 favorites]

I've seen hanging chairs that come with their own frames - bulkier/bigger footprint, but you don't have to rely on anything structural in the room.
posted by porpoise at 11:26 AM on January 23, 2018 [6 favorites]

My teenage size rattan chair had a 2x4 diagonally attached to 3-4 studs and the chair into the 2x4. Best chair ever to curl up and read.
posted by sammyo at 11:41 AM on January 23, 2018

I got my daughter one of these hanging chairs for her birthday a few years back; it’s one of the few presents she still uses after all that time. I used a swing set hanger like this to hang it. (I got the hanger a my local big box building supply store, that’s just the first pic I found.) I was very careful to screw the hanger into the center of a ceiling joist and it has held up just fine. The amount of horizontal clearance needed was less than I thought, although that might be different if you have an exceptionally rambunctious child.
posted by TedW at 11:48 AM on January 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

More than you ever wanted to know, with the caveat that I've only done this stuff as a hobby so may be off on some of my numbers. But this may help you use the various online load span calculators to get a better feel of what you're dealing with.

There are "live loads" and "dead loads". Live loads are things that move around, like people and (especially) swings. Dead loads are things that don't, like building materials, and I think sometimes furniture falls in this category. The numbers used vary for different building codes and different areas, but a ceiling with attic and no storage above it is typically engineered for about 10lbs/sq.ft dead load, the joists in a ceiling with a second story above it are typically engineered for about 10lbs/sq.ft. dead load, 40 lbs/sq.ft. live load.

Now these loads are for a maximum deflection of l/360, that is in the middle of the span the joist is not supposed to deflect down more than one 360th of the span of the joist (eg: over a 22.5 foot span, the ceiling/floor above. This is a long way from breaking, and the number is chosen to prevent spackle or plaster cracking. There's a whole lot of room between that and catastrophic failure.

(Terminology: Joists are flat, rafters are angled, so unless you have a cathedral or vaulted ceiling, you have joists above the ceiling from which the wallboard is hung, insulation over those joists, and above that there's dead space between those joists and the rafters.)

A swing is going to be a point load in some portion of the span, and have lateral loads on it (the swinging part), so you want to over-engineer it a bit.

Having said all that, if I were going to do this on a ceiling that didn't have a story above it, I'd find the joist that I wanted to hang the swing from, reinforce it laterally (because the swing will put lateral forces on the joist) and a little bit vertically (might just be sufficient to take a 1x6 laid flat across the top of the 2x4 joist you're trying to reinforce and put structural screws every 8-12" down through the 1x6 to the 2x4, that'll up your 2x4 to a nominal 6 vertically, but a little playing with a wood span calculator wouldn't hurt). Make it long enough to get to supporting structural walls on either end.

Then put some eye bolts up through that joist (probably run them straight through with a nut and washer on top of the 2x6).

If money is no object, or if you have a friend who is a structural engineer that you can prevail upon for a cool project, a little on-site advice would go a long way. Given that it's for a kid's room I'd be a little tempted to over-engineer it, on the other hand if you get solidly into a stud the most likely bad side effect is cracking in the ceiling.
posted by straw at 11:48 AM on January 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

I've done that with this, in an old victorian house and a newer old house. Agreed with all the previous responses, it will not hold if it's not in the joist - but it should if you get it in one. If you're not on the top floor it's almost certain you will have a sturdy joist to connect to since wood was generally cut thicker back then, if you are on the top floor try to get a look in the attic at what you're connecting to to make sure it's strong enough. If you can't get to the top of the joist I'd be comfortable using a couple of lag screws instead of bolts, but that's up to you. If you do use more than one bolt/screw make sure that the triangle is equidistant, otherwise you're really just hanging on one and the other is for show.

One last thing to keep in mind is that kids like to spin in those, and spinning has the potential to unscrew the lag screw or bolt. You're looking to do something like this: rotational decoupler. So, from the ceiling down: one or more lag screws or lag bolts, with an eye hole pointing down into the room. Carabiner from that kit, rotational device, carabiner from that kit, chain or rope of swing through the carabiner. The pictures on the one I linked show what you'd need to do.
posted by true at 11:58 AM on January 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

My 9 year old daughter has one of those and it's fallen down twice since her birthday in August. The first time was because she spun around and around until it unscrewed, so definitely get a rotational decoupler like true recommends. (And thank you, true, for knowing the name of that, I was coming in here to say they need a turny hooky thing.)

The second time, it was screwed into a board that was near the joist, not the joist like we had thought. So now it should be fine.
posted by artychoke at 12:32 PM on January 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

The other replies are mostly skipping the word "Victorian"; if you have plaster ceilings, I would not do this, because if you make a mistake or get unlucky, you could bring down a good chunk of the ceiling. Even if you install it correctly, the vibrations from the kid playing in it over time might cause enough damage to make replacing most of the ceiling necessary. If you actually have wallboard, then the damage you can cause is minimal.

If you don't own it, if I were the landlord, I'd be upset if you did this when alternatives are available. This isn't hanging a picture.
posted by flimflam at 2:59 PM on January 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yeah, plaster is made of dragons and cracks, so avoid avoid avoid.

Also, this is probably beyond what you ought to do in a rental. Possibly you could get permission, as long as it’s a hook or eye bolt or something reusable.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:14 PM on January 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

Though it will work in most cases you shouldn't use a screw/lag into a joist for this application. The threads can loosen over time and unexpectedly pull out. Instead one should ideally use a bolt ran clear through the joist or even better a bolt through a piece of dimensional lumber spanning two or more joists. The latter spreads out the point load over more than one member.
posted by Mitheral at 8:38 PM on January 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

Please don't do this. Your husband is right, it is a very bad idea. To do this safely in any house requires a lot of serious planning and hardware. To do it safely in a Victorian, assuming plaster and lath, would be something you'd want to hire a professional to do. So just buy a frame for a hanging chair. It is less dangerous for your child and you, with less risk of property damage and angry landlords.

Think about the direction and strength of force. The best way to hang something that swings with weight is to use a steel support bracket that is coupled (bolted) onto the rafter, which then supports a fastener to a rotational coupler. Less good but still fairly safe would be a lag bolt through the entire beam (parallel to floor is better, perpendicular is less so).

When I was looking for a safe way to hang my hammock indoors I found so much bad information. People don't take this seriously because it is just for play, and just kids. People don't think that the worst will happen to them. It probably won't, but a fall from even a short distance can change a life forever. The lifestyle blogs where you see 'Oh I hung up this indoor swing for my kids and they love it and all it took was a couple of cheap screw thingies!" are just plain scary. Doing this poorly is a very good way to get hurt.

In the end, I did hang my hammock indoors, from my bedroom walls. I did a lot of research, bought high quality hardware and the necessary tools, and I'm not renting. The hangers are bulky and ugly and will leave big holes when I take them out, but each will support 1200 lbs load. Each of the fasteners can withstand 900+ lbs of shear. The wall studs are the weakest point of my hang. However, I hang at an angle that causes less pull force on the wall than my weight, and my backside is only about 12 inches above the floor. But I don't live in a Victorian, nor do I get frisky and swing.
posted by monopas at 9:20 PM on January 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Hmm, lots to think about! We own our flat -- would never think to do this in a rental. And now that I think of it, the room is in the extended part of the flat (my neighbor's upstairs balcony is above) so it's not really Victorian! It looks like I will have to get a professional out or just not do it -- no room for the frame unfortunately. Thanks everyone!
posted by caoimhe at 11:12 PM on January 23, 2018

It's pretty easy to add a frame flush to the walls and ceiling. Put the chair in a corner. Run a 2x6 up the wall on each side about 4' from the corner screwed into the stud. Set a pair of 2x6 on top of the verticals on edge (screwed together) securing with an appropriate Simpson Tie. Bolt through the doubled 2x6 to suspend the hanging chair.

The wood can be painted or stained to coordinate with the rest of the room.

This method would take up essentially zero floor or head space.
posted by Mitheral at 10:02 AM on January 24, 2018

Just wanted to add -- now that my daughters are grown they have told us about jumping off their bunk bed onto piles of blankets and pillows. Of course, this is onto a concrete slab under the carpet.
Were they allowed to do this? No. Did friends do it? They didn't say.
So... how many kids will that swinging chair hold?
posted by TrishaU at 6:50 PM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

When I need to hang something that's heavy, I want to be certain I'm screwing into the dead middle of a stud or a joist, I never trust a stud finder - instead, I take my tiniest drill bit and probe the plaster until I'm certain where everything is. Wiping some spackle over the holes afterwards makes them nearly invisible until the next paint job.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:18 PM on February 1, 2018