Bench Project

I recently finished up a bench project that I had been working on and off for some time. This was something Laura wanted for the “mud room” so you can sit down to take off your shoes when you come inside and it also provides a place for your shoes.  The bench is going to sit over a air register, so I used slats for the shoe “rack” so they could dry in the winter time.

Here’s the result:

Finished Bench

This bench was made from poplar and the seat is 4/2 thick. I jointed the edges and glued it up from three boards (actually one long board cut into segments). The legs are made from two boards also glued together to approximately 3″ square. The legs are mortised into the underside of the seat. There is a cross bar between the legs on each side for stability and slats running between those two cross bars (laying on top of them).  Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures while it was being made, so here it is before finishing:

Unfinished Bench

In the picture above,the slats underneath are just set into place (not attached yet).  I didn’t want to attach them before finishing as it would make staining them a real pain. As you see in the picture below, we were able to stain the slats individually.  Laura chose a nice blue stain and then poly’d it several times to protect it from use.

Finished Slats

Finished Bench Seat

After everything was stained and poly’d, I then attached the slats with some wood glue and a screw in each end driven from underneath.  You can see that here:

Slats seen from underneath

And here is the final bench, sitting in the mud room ready for “sitters”.

Finished Bench

Hope you enjoyed this brief description of this project!