The Park Bench

For years, I've been looking for a couple of pieces of lumber--big heavy beams--to make a bench for the front porch of our cabin. I wanted it rustic, old, and substantial. But somehow, I could never find the exact piece of lumber...or at least, not at the exact price I wanted to pay, which was very close to zero. And it wasn't for lack of trying--I just never quite found what I was looking for.

Until last weekend, when I started to replace roof on our old woodshed at the cabin, and found a couple of slabs of painted 2x12 that had been in there since we bought the place ten years ago. And you know what? They looked like they must might work. And when I dug a little deeper, I realized that they were beautiful old clear heart redwood.

So the planks came home with us, where I planed off the paint, cleaned up the wood a bit, and even bought a 2x4 to fill in the blanks. And what I ended up with was a darn nice bench. Not quite so rustic, thanks to the beautiful redwood, but clearly a bench for a cabin--all for under $50.

Of course, that's only if you don't count my labor. We don't want to think about how many hours I spend cleaning up those planks...but it looks good, huh?