I have been wanting a bench for my porch. My house has rough cut wood siding with wood porch railing. So I wanted a wood bench to go along with this. My dad has recently retired and is picking up wood working as a hobby. He had previously offered to make simple furniture for us if there was something we wanted. So I asked him to make a wood bench for our porch.
My assumption was that an appropriate design would be readily available. However, we looked at a couple benches at the park and at Lowes and nothing was quite what I wanted. I also looked through a couple wood project plan books and we did an internet search. So being a mechanical designer I decided to create a simple design myself. To get the right overall dimensions I went back to Lowes tried out several plastic benches that they had to find the one that felt best. I then pulled out my tape measure and took it's dimensions. (Fortunately my wife was not there as she would have been embarassed. She was embarassed later when I told her.) So at home one evening I started drawing using AutoCAD and came up with what I think is a pleasing fairly simple design.
The design has the following features.
My assumption was that an appropriate design would be readily available. However, we looked at a couple benches at the park and at Lowes and nothing was quite what I wanted. I also looked through a couple wood project plan books and we did an internet search. So being a mechanical designer I decided to create a simple design myself. To get the right overall dimensions I went back to Lowes tried out several plastic benches that they had to find the one that felt best. I then pulled out my tape measure and took it's dimensions. (Fortunately my wife was not there as she would have been embarassed. She was embarassed later when I told her.) So at home one evening I started drawing using AutoCAD and came up with what I think is a pleasing fairly simple design.
The design has the following features.
- It has a back that is tilted back several inches. Also the seat has a 2" backward tilt. Yet this is not so much that it is hard to get out of.
- It is made for two adults since I plan to relax there with my wonderful wife and watch the cars go by. It also seems to fit two adults and one little child between us as a couple of our children have figured out.
- It has arm rests.
- The construction is all from 2x4 lumber with all lapping joints that can easily be wood screwed together.
- I added optional routered edges on the arm rest and initial edge of the seat so it would be more comfortable.
The cost of materials is about $20 so it was less that the typical $90 bench at Lowes requiring assembly. The one tip I have for making it is to put at least one coat of paint, stain, or seal on the boards before assembly. It was difficult to work a brush into the corners and gap between the slats. The most difficult part for my dad was assemblying the ends. He had to use his tape measure and a square a lot to get them set right.
The 8 1/2" x 11" jpg format drawings pasted in below are detailed. I think you can copy them out and look at them larger scale in a photo viewer.
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