DIY Bench no. 2.

I've been spending a lot of time looking at bench designs as we need one for our 'hallway' by the door. It's the first thing I've really designed and built from scratch so the process has been a really good experience. 

As always, I made alterations and tweaks along the way such as changing the distance between the slats (wider as you move away from the centre) and leaving a gap between the end of the slats and the frame. I also made good use of the table saw again, cutting a step out of the top piece making a ledge for the slats to sit on and for cutting mortices in the bottom pieces. The materials cost about US$15.

The two iterations of the design in Sketchup (this one has more slats and is slightly longer)

The shed and table saw set up.

It's great to be woodworking outside on days like this

The frame pre-oiling. (Very messy shed, I know) 

Test assembly success!

After the stain/seal had dried

Here you can see the mortices are staggered: 2" and 1" deep and the opposite on the other side

 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.

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.