Rustic doesn't mean easy

I’ve been wanting a foot stool at my lake place for a couple of years, and decided it was finally time.

I wanted it to be rustic to match the overall decor in the place, so I looked up a local guy who cuts and drys all local varieties of wood and he had a slab of white pine with the bark on. He explained what he does to make sure the bark didn’t fall off over time, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember what he did…but let’s hope he knows what he was doing.

The legs are turned from ash branches from a downed tree on my lot, and the cross pieces (I know there’s a real name for them, but, again, can’t remember what it is) are from a downed maple. there’s a bunch of that stuff I plan to use in the future. I tried to pick branches that were the right size to turn yet leave a little bark on for the rustic look.
It was a challenge turning the ends to make a good fit for the joints, so I decided to pin all the joints for strength.

The legs don’t go all the way through the top, but rather, I drilled through and counter bored the top and used wood screws to hold the legs, and used 1 1/4” wood dowel plugs to hide it all.

I hand planed the top and used an old bit brace to bore the top holes. I gave the whole thing (not the bark) a hand rubbed coat of linseed oil and then 2 coats of amber shellac, which I like for the warm tone it gives.

It works great!

-- Accuracy is not in your power tool, it's in you