Wednesday, November 9, 2011

DIY furniture take 3: A George Nelson bench

Recently, I've been using the tried and tested excuse of DIYers everywhere ("I've got the time and we could save a lot doing it ourselves..."), I've tackled building another piece of furniture for our wonderful but oh-so-sparsely-furnished house. This was a bit of a jump from my last projects which consisted of:

1. a cat-scratch pole

Silka was a very obliging cat-scratch pole model.

 2. a very rustic (read rough/clunky) dining table,


... I chose the ambitious goal of building a 4' George Nelson bench, an iconic design which is on sale for US$300-$800 new, depending on which source you buy from.

Altogether I spent about $70 on materials and some $60 on new tools, sandpaper and polyurethane to finish it.

It was a serious learning process and I had a couple of false starts, made some adjustments and took my time. It's far from perfect but I'm very pleased with the results.

 If you are interested, check out my mid century modern furniture business Trystcraft . I find, restore, refinish (no chalk paint!) and repair mid century modern furniture and ship it worldwide.







The legs just after the stain/seal had dried.