Rustic Bench Made From Wood Pallets

My husband and I have been having fun working on projects together and creating things from wood pallets we got from a friend. A couple weeks ago we made shelves that came out pretty good. You can look at the project here. Then we made a sign with our family name on it that I really like. You can look at that project here. This last weekend we made a bench. He actually made it and I took pictures! We needed a bench with a place for shoes for our entryway. We have white carpet, so I try to enforce the “take your shoes off rule” and it’s easier to have people do this when there is a place to sit to take their shoes off and a place to sit to put them back on. The bench serves this purpose and I really like the way it came out. I do want to make a cushion for it that I’ll get around to making and posting soon. Here is how it looks right now.

Here are the steps my husband took to make the bench.

Because we have made the shelves and the sign using wood pallets, they are all broken up. He cut the section above to begin with the seating portion of the bench.

He hammered the ends to another piece of wood to create a somewhat ladder.

He filled in the wide open spaces with pieces of wood the same size leaving small openings between each slat.

He measured 18 inches for the legs and cut.

Using wood screws, he attached the legs to the inside portion of the ladder seat part of the bench. He used wood screws to attach supports for the legs.

He hammered two slats of wood to the supports of the legs to create a shelf.

He spent the most time sanding. The wood from pallets is pretty rustic and when you pull it apart it tends to get even more rustic so the sanding helps smooth the roughness.

He applied two coats of a brown colored stain. This works for our house since we live in the mountains. If we lived at the beach, I wood paint it white! Then he sprayed it with a clear gloss lacquer.

The final product

I think it will look better with a cushion but I really like the way it came out.

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