Making a new bench!

So in January, I found this wonderful blog called Knock Off Wood and on that site I found plans for a simple bench that was a knock off of a bench that was seen in Better Homes and Gardens. Now I have seen this bench before, not that exact bench but many, many benches similar to it. I saw these benches while I was very young and growing up in rural VA. My great-grandparents owned a farm and they had a multitude of these benches, so when I saw this bench and its plans I got the idea to replace my gargantuan coffee table in family room and replace it with this bench to give my boys more room to play.

Here are the plans for the bench.  I modified these plans to accomodate what I needed/wanted it to do. Having two young boys means lots of toys, and while I strive to have my house look the way I want it too....I also need to be realistic, and my reality is that my boys have a lot of toys and those toys will not always be in their rooms. I have baskets everywhere in the living areas of the house and I'm ok with this, because at the end of the day my older son puts away his toys before bedtime and then my husband and I pick up the baby's toys and put them away and we have our adult space back.

The original plans for the bench call for it to be 36" between the legs, I lengthened this to 48" between the legs, which increased the overall length of my bench to 53 1/2" long. I was worried that the added length would be weird against the other furniture in the room, but it was fine. It also adds extra seating for when we have people over, which is quite often.

You'll have to forgive the mess in the pictures. When I was building this bench were were in the middle of finishing part of our basement, so I figured I might as well work down there since there was already a mess down there. Better than freezing in my garage.

I used an ebony stain on the bench to match the rest of the wood pieces in our family room....it's also easy to hide dents/scratches on a darker piece of furniture I've found. You have to love the original scratch remover from Old English. :)

After the stain went on, I used a satin polyurethane to seal it. I usually use high gloss but the rest of the pieces in the room are satin. I'm thinking next time I do a piece that will get a lot of abuse I'll use semi-gloss. Hot wheels and any finish on a piece of furniture is never a good combination. Unfortunately, hot wheels, robots, dragons, banging, bouncing and etc....are apart of having boys and kids in general.

I'm quite happy with how the finish product has turned out. I'm even happier that the toy baskets fit nicely underneath it and each boy has a large container for his stuff, now to weed out and sort the rest of the toy baskets on the main level. :)  I also think the increased length works with the scale and size of the room and other furniture.  My son, Devlin, is showing off his father's creation, because apparently Mommy did not build it. ;) I'm good for gummies but not furniture making according to him :)