Kids Adirondack Chairs Built From Repurposed Snowboards
There is a moment on every deck where the kid climbs into the good chair, the big Adirondack one built for a grown adult, and sits there swinging their legs a foot above the floor like a judge who has clearly already made up their mind. You can move them. You can also just get them a chair that actually fits. That is what these are. The Colorful Kids Snowboard Chairs are a matched set of two kid-sized Adirondack chairs built from real repurposed snowboards, hand painted in Colorado, and made to live outside next to the grownup ones. If you have been hunting for kids Adirondack chairs that are built like real furniture instead of the hollow plastic stuff that blows off the patio in the first stiff wind, this is the pair.
The Little Chair That Ends the Great Deck Standoff
Anybody who has hosted a summer evening with kids around knows the standoff. The adults want the deck chairs. The kids want the deck chairs. Nobody wants the folding camp chair with the busted cup holder. It becomes a whole negotiation, and negotiations with a seven year old rarely end in your favor.
These kids Adirondack chairs solve that the simple way, by giving the little ones their own seat that looks like it belongs to the same family as yours. Same lean-back Adirondack shape. Same hand painted snowboard backs. Same weatherproof build. Just scaled down to a size where a kid can actually get in, sit back, and reach the ground. A four year old settling into a chair that is theirs, that matches Mom and Dad’s, is a small thing that turns out to be a big thing. They stay put. They feel included. And for once, the good chairs stay free.
We have sent these to grandparents who wanted seating at the cabin for the grandkids, to families outfitting a fire pit area, and to more than a few parents who bought the adult chairs first and came back the following spring because the kids would not stop stealing them. The set of two is the sweet spot. Two kids, two chairs, and the fight moves on to something else, like whose turn it is to feed the dog.
What These Actually Are, Kids Adirondack Chairs Built From Snowboards
Let us be clear about what you are getting, because there is a lot of vague furniture out there. These are kids Adirondack chairs, the smaller siblings of our full-size Adirondack ski and snowboard chairs, and each one is built using real retired snowboards worked into the seat and back. The boards are the good part. A snowboard has a shape and a graphic and a history, and when it becomes the back of a chair, all of that comes with it. The pair pictured has striped board backs over colorful seats, which is a look kids gravitate to without being asked.
Snowboards are not thrown away because they stopped working. They get retired because somebody upgraded, or grew, or moved on to skis, or just accumulated more gear than one garage can hold. That board still has years of good material in it. Turning it into a kid’s chair is the second act it deserves, and it keeps a perfectly solid deck out of a landfill. That is the honest sustainability story here, not a hang tag with a leaf printed on it.
The Colorful Kids Snowboard Chairs come as a set of two, hand painted, water and weather proof, and sized at 33 inches tall by 18 inches deep by 20 inches wide. That is a real chair, not a novelty. A kid can grow with it for years, and honestly a smaller adult can perch in one without any drama. We build them one order at a time in Manitou Springs, Colorado, and ship them across the country.
How a Retired Snowboard Becomes a Kid-Sized Chair
People assume a chair like this is mostly assembly, like the material shows up already halfway to being furniture. It does not work that way. A snowboard is stiff, it is curved, it has metal edges and a slick top sheet, and none of that wants to become a comfortable seat on its own. Getting there takes real work.
Each board gets cleaned up, cut, and fitted to the frame so the curve of the deck actually helps the sit instead of fighting it. The frame itself is solid wood, built to the same standards as our full-size chairs, just proportioned for a smaller person. Then comes the paint. We hand paint almost everything in high quality exterior oil paint, which is the finish that lets these chairs sit out in the sun and the snow without going chalky or peeling. A kid’s chair takes the same coats and the same drying time as any other, because a four year old is harder on furniture than most adults and the finish has to survive them.
One thing worth saying plainly, because we get asked. A snowboard chair takes more board than people expect. It is not one board sawed in half and screwed to some legs. Even these smaller kids chairs use more material than the single deck the seat back suggests, and we build them from our own stock of retired boards so the proportions and the strength come out right. If you happen to have a board of your own that means something, a first board, a board with a story, call us and we will talk about working it into the visible part of the build. We will match the rest from what we have. What we will not do is pretend one old board magically becomes two chairs. It does not, and you would not want to sit in the version that did.
Sized for Kids, Built Like the Grownup Ones
The temptation with kids furniture is to cut corners, because the reasoning goes that they will outgrow it anyway. We do the opposite. These kids Adirondack chairs are built to the same standard as the chairs we sell to adults, because a chair that falls apart in one season is not a bargain, it is a landfill visit on a delay.
At 33 inches tall, 18 inches deep, and 20 inches wide, the proportions are dialed in for a child but the bones are all grown up. The seat sits low enough that little feet reach the deck, which matters more than people realize, because a kid whose feet dangle gets bored and squirmy and leaves. The back has the classic Adirondack recline, so they actually lean back and look at the fire instead of perching on the edge. And because the whole thing is solid, there is no wobble, no tip, no sudden plastic crack that sends everybody’s heart into their throat.
The other quiet advantage of building them properly is that they hold their value in use. A well made kids chair does not get thrown out when the first kid outgrows it. It moves to the next kid, or the cousins, or the grandkids, or it becomes the plant stand by the door because you cannot bear to part with it. Buy nice or buy twice, as the saying goes, and with kids furniture people usually buy twice. This is the buy nice version.
Paint It However Your Kid Wants It
Here is where a kid’s chair gets fun in a way an adult chair never quite does. Kids have opinions about color, loud ones, and for once you can just say yes. We can paint these tons of different ways. The set pictured runs bright and striped, but that is a starting point, not a rule.
Want them to match the full-size Adirondack chairs you already own, so the deck looks like one set instead of a hand-me-down collection? We can do that, and matching an existing chair is one of the most common requests we get on this piece. Want a mountain scene, a pair of animals, their favorite colors, their initials, a team, a flag? We can paint just about anything you can dream up. Many folks go with the original ski and snowboard art, the graphics that came on the boards, which looks great and runs about 250 dollars less than a full custom painted scene. Custom painting beyond that runs 75 dollars an hour, so a small personal touch does not cost much, and a full hand painted mural is its own kind of heirloom.
A quick honest note for any business or team reading this, because we do get asked. A hand painted scene we can absolutely do by hand. A company logo is a different animal. A logo has to hold its exact shape and color, so it goes on as a logo decal floated onto the painted background, with aluminum or plastic appliques as alternatives, not brushed on freehand. Branded pricing we quote on a call. For a set of kids chairs, though, most people are after color and character, and that we paint by hand all day.
Where These Chairs End Up
The obvious spot is the back deck or the patio, a small pair pulled up next to the big ones around a fire pit. That is where most of them go, and it is a good look. But they travel further than that.
Cabins and mountain houses order them so the grandkids have somewhere to sit that is theirs, not the guest chair they are technically not supposed to be climbing on. Lake houses put them on the dock. Families with a play area outside give the kids a real seat instead of the upturned bucket that has served that role for two summers. We have seen them go into kids’ rooms as an indoor reading chair, because they are weatherproof but nobody says they have to live outside. They show up on covered porches, in she-sheds and man-caves as the seat for whoever is smallest, and at more than a few weddings and family reunions as the flower kid’s throne.
Short term rental owners in ski towns like them too, because a property that has clearly thought about the kids is a property that gets booked by families and photographed for the listing. A pair of hand painted kids Adirondack chairs on a mountain deck reads as care, and care is what turns a rental into a repeat booking. That is the sustainable-gifting angle a lot of businesses miss, by the way. A reclaimed, made in Colorado, built-to-last piece says more about a company’s values than another box of branded pens headed for a drawer.
Made to Live Outside, in Colorado and Everywhere Else
Colorado weather is not gentle. Full sun at altitude, dry air, afternoon storms, and then a foot of snow because it is October and the mountains felt like it. Anything we build has to shrug all of that off, and kids chairs get held to the same standard.
The exterior oil paint is the workhorse. It is made for the outdoors, it holds its color in UV that fades cheaper finishes in a season, and it takes moisture without lifting. The chairs are water and weather proof, so a surprise storm is not a crisis, and morning dew on the seat is a wipe with a towel, not a warp. You can leave them out through the season without ceremony. For the deep winter you can stash them in the garage if you like, same as any nice outdoor furniture, but they are built to take weather, not hide from it.
Durability is also where the reclaimed material earns its keep a second time. A snowboard is engineered to survive being ridden hard down a mountain in the cold and slammed into a rack at the end of the day. That is a material with a high tolerance for abuse baked in, which is exactly what you want under a kid. These chairs are meant to last for years and years, through more than one kid if you plan it right, and when you look at the cost spread across that many seasons they come out far cheaper per year than the plastic set you replace every summer.
The Kids Gift That Does Not End Up at the Curb
Think about the last few gifts you bought a kid that survived past the following spring. It is a short list. Most kids gifts are loud, plastic, and destined for a donation box the second the novelty wears off. A pair of hand painted kids Adirondack chairs is the opposite of that, and it makes these one of the better gifts going for a child who has, in the words every grandparent uses, everything.
For grandparents, this is the present that earns you the good kind of reputation. It is not another toy underfoot. It is a real seat with the grandkid’s name or favorite colors on it, waiting at the cabin or on your porch for the next visit, and it says the visit is expected and the kid belongs there. Parents order them as a birthday or holiday gift that photographs beautifully and gets used every single evening the weather is decent. Aunts and uncles who want to be the fun one without buying a drum set find this hits the mark.
The reclaimed angle gives the gift a second layer that lands with the grownups even when the kid just cares about the color. You are handing over something made from a real snowboard, built in Colorado, meant to outlast the childhood it was bought for. In a house drowning in disposable stuff, a durable, made to order, sustainably built chair is a quiet statement, and it is the rare kid gift the parents are genuinely glad to see arrive. Order early for a birthday or the holidays, tell us the deadline, and we will make sure it is on the deck in time.
Why Buy From Colorado Ski Chairs
We are a small business, locally owned and operated, building every piece to order in Manitou Springs, Colorado. There is no warehouse of pre-made kids chairs waiting to be drop-shipped. When you order the set, we build your set, and that is why we can paint it your way instead of whatever way the pallet came in.
The reclaimed part is not a marketing angle we bolted on. It is how the shop has always worked. Retired skis and snowboards come in, and instead of ending their life in a dumpster they leave as furniture. For a kids piece that matters in a specific way, because you are handing a child a chair with a real story in it, a board that used to carry somebody down a mountain, rather than another anonymous injection-molded thing. Kids ask about it. Where did the chair come from. Somebody rode this down a mountain once. That is a better answer than the truck it came off of.
We also stand behind the work and we care more about the second order than the first. Our whole model runs on people coming back and telling their neighbors, so getting it right is not a favor, it is the business. If something is not right, we make it right. That is easy to say and we actually mean it.
How Ordering Works
Ordering is straightforward. You can buy the set of two right from the product page, and if you want them a particular way, the color and design details are where you tell us. If you have something specific in mind, matching your existing chairs, a scene, your kid’s favorite colors, or you want to send us a board of your own, the fastest path is a quick phone call to the shop at 303.775.7273. We would rather talk through a custom idea for two minutes than guess at it.
Production time runs about 2 to 4 weeks, sometimes a little longer when the shop is deep in a season, because each set is hand built and hand painted rather than pulled off a shelf. If you are up against a birthday, a holiday, or a visit from the grandkids, tell us the deadline. We can usually hit it. Free shipping covers most of the lower 48, and we ship these all over the country. Local Colorado folks can arrange pickup or delivery, which also saves the boxes.
One last practical note. These sell as a set of two, which is genuinely the way to buy them. Two kids means two chairs and one fewer argument, and even with one kid, a spare seat for the friend who always ends up over at your place is never a bad call. Browse the rest of what we make under Custom Designs if you want to match the kids chairs to a whole outdoor setup.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many snowboards does it take to make these kids chairs?
More than the single board the seat back suggests. Even at kid size, each chair uses more board and solid wood than people expect, and we build the pair from our own stock of retired snowboards so the strength and proportions come out right. One old board does not become a whole chair, let alone two, so we never build it that way.
What size are the Colorful Kids Snowboard Chairs?
Each chair measures 33 inches tall by 18 inches deep by 20 inches wide. That is scaled for a child, low enough that little feet reach the ground, while still being a real, solidly built Adirondack chair a smaller adult can sit in comfortably.
Can you paint them to match the adult chairs we already own?
Yes, and it is one of the most common requests on this set. Tell us what you have or send a photo, and we will match the colors and design so the kids chairs read as part of the same set on your deck. Custom painting runs 75 dollars an hour, and the original ski and snowboard art option costs about 250 dollars less than a full custom scene.
Are these kids Adirondack chairs safe to leave outside?
Yes. They are hand painted in exterior oil paint and built water and weather proof, so they handle sun, rain, and snow. Colorado Ski Chairs builds them to last for years, through more than one kid, and you can store them in the garage over deep winter if you prefer, same as any quality outdoor furniture.
Give the Kids a Seat Worth Fighting Over
A pair of hand painted kids Adirondack chairs, built from real snowboards, made to match yours and made to last, is the rare kids purchase that does not end up at the curb next spring. Take a look at the Colorful Kids Snowboard Chairs, and if you want them painted a specific way or matched to chairs you already own, give the shop a call at 303.775.7273. We will build the set, the kids will claim them in about four seconds, and your good chairs will finally be safe.
