18 April 2010

sit: Garden Bench

I tuned into ESP the other day and saw his very cool garden bench project. (Especially love the touch of the Mexican blanket on the seat.) Thusly, he turned me on to this garden-bench-design-month-extravaganza, which I can't pass up.

Here's the garden bench that John and I made awhile back.



It's great for gazing at the garden under the (growing) shade of the desert willow. It also happens to be long enough to lie down on...(In case you are wondering, that vase is full of Texas betony, which needed to be clipped, but doesn't belong indoors - the smell is not for the faint at heart.)

The bench seat is made of this huge hunk o' wood that I found at Austin ReStore. When I saw it I insisted we buy, but didn't have much of a plan. In swooped John with his fabulous sensibilities.

We had a bunch of old posts laying around from the P.O.s (more on that in a blog post to come), and he came up with this great design to reuse the posts as the base and legs. Here's a shot of that, with the cool industrial bolt.



Each leg is made of two post bits sandwiched together and the center rail of the base is the rest of the post. Now that the bench has been out in the elements for a while, it's growing shelf fungus.



I'll be sad to see the thing totally disintegrate back into nature, but on the other hand, what's better than something that you know won't last? And it's kinda cool to have rescued these pieces of wood and turned them into something more than just firewood or garbage...

5 comments:

ESP said...

Hi Lee.
Thanks for the link and you should submit the post and your bench to the GGW design workshop! That is a really good and simple / effective design to implement as a stopping point all around the garden...I know I need a lot more!

Seating has been totally ignored in the Patch for way too long, as I have come to realize from having and lounging around my new bench. It really is now a family gathering place, I would never have imagined!

Benches are like punctuation marks in a landscape that force you to stop a while and look around...to take a break from the work. I need about three more!

Of course I would have to fit a beer holder onto all of them :-)

ESP.

Tina Poe said...

Ah, beautiful simplicity! After seeing your bench and the new bench at EPS, I have some ideas for the scrap wood that I haven't wanted to throw away.

Pam/Digging said...

I love your bench. Even better that you created it yourself out of recycled wood. Like ESP, I believe in benches in the garden. I may not sit on mine all that often, but they make a great focal point.

weeder1 said...

Love the bench! Simple and recycled. Perfect!

Anonymous said...

May I ask you how you attached the bench seat to the base? I have the same scrap wood lying around and would love to recreate this!