Upcycled Garden Bench – DIY

Have some old lumber laying around? An upcycled garden bench might be something to make.

Try making a garden bench as I did!  

This time we’re using wood which otherwise would have gone to the landfill.

Building a Patio or Garden Bench

This bench was built using old leftover wood from a few different projects around the house.

Some of the wood came from our Kitchen refresh project, some of the wood was old lumber from our backyard makeover.

When I first started this project, I had no idea how to build a bench.

What does someone do when they want to learn how to do something?

Go to YouTube of course! I found a video by Steve Ramsey, but his video seems it would be best for the super-novice DIYer.

Fortunately, a young man by the name of Eric Lindberg decided to make his own video of the Steve Ramsey bench instructional, which was more my speed.

Here’s Eric Lindberg’s video of How to Build a Garden Bench.

It is good to note that I did vary from the video to make the bench my own as you can see by the arched back in comparison to the straight boards in the video.

I also had to adjust some things because I was using 2×6’s rather than 2×4’s. But the concept is generally the same and it turned out pretty nice.

 

Today Only Savings from The Home Depot! While Supp
Here are a few pictures of the project…

 

We started with a complete pile of junk wood, most of which is in the picture below.

This was all scraps from the deck stairs and railings we installed.

The only thing not pictured is a bunch of 1 x 3 furring strips that were used in our kitchen project to hold the cabinet doors while we painted them.

Upcycled Garden Bench

The assembled frame. As you can see, the wood is old and weathered because the wood is our old deck railings – don’t worry, I installed new ones.

I didn’t have a pocket jig like they use in the video, so I used 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch deck screws and toe-nailed the pieces together.

It worked well, but obviously would have been much cleaner had I used pocket holes.

Oh well, it’s a rustic upcycled bench – right!?

Upcycled DIY Garden Bench, Patio Bench

The frame has been painted white and the seat and back have been added.

I used a piece of landscape edging to mark the curve, then cut it with a hand saw and sanded it smooth.

Then I assembled the back and then put it in place in one piece, attaching it to cleats (made from the baluster cut-offs from our new deck stairs) at a slight angle.

How to Build a Bench

 

Today Only Savings from The Home Depot! While Supp
Here is the finished DIY upcycled garden or patio bench.

 

I painted the seat and back gray and the frame white.

The sun is playing tricks, the gray is darker than it shows in the pictures.

I do plan on adding some stencil work to the front of the bench, but I need to find a nice stencil first!

Recycled Wood Bench

 

 

Join the Conversation

  1. Alyssa McVey says:

    It looks so nice. You’d pay big bucks for that at any store. Your yard looks awesome!

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