Once in a while I manage to interest my husband into building something for me. Over the years, my bookish professor/writer has turned out to be a halfway decent carpenter. With warm weather finally arriving, he wandered into the barn this weekend where he found some cast off pieces to be just right for crafting a couple of garden benches for our wooded property.
I admit that I prodded him into building the first one. It was made from an old bed and I had seen one like it on a recent trip to a garden thrift shop. When I mentioned that building a bench with the discarded piece of furniture would get it out of the barn and out of his way–well, that got him interested. He tied together the headboard and footboard and then laid a long wooden plank, another piece from yet a second old discarded waterbed, down the middle to form the seat.
We found a spot for it along one of our paths, at the top of a hill. I will haul my paints and brushes outdoors this week and give it a new paint job.
My husband crafted the second bench from a thick board, another piece of my daughter’s cast-off bed. He used an old beam to form the legs by first cutting the beam in half and then sinking the legs into the ground. A cross beam adds stability.
My own earlier attempt at bench making isn’t nearly as well made. I used an old piano bench and hammered some ill-fitting plywood to the bottom to form a cat shelter which can be accessed from either end. It’s rough but it makes a nice rest stop at the far corner of our property.
We now have three new benches to decorate our yard. As always when we reuse and recycle, we are enjoying the added benefit of having some “old junk” cleaned out of the barn.
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