Nana's window bench

A few years back, for my mother-in-law’s big 6-0, my wife gathered the troops and planned a master bedroom makeover, in the style of all those TV makeover shows. She worked out the design scheme and coordinated efforts. I volunteered to tackle the “carpentry bit” in the form of a window seat/storage bench.

The plans came from Fine Homebuilding (Oct/Nov 2003 if you’re keeping score). The materials are standard off-the-shelf fare from the Home Depot. The construction and details were pretty straightforward and required few tools, just the ticket for a weekend project fit for a novice like me. At this point in my woodworking/home-renovation life, most of my experience came from helping my dad or grandfather on various projects around our new (to us) old house.

I had a fairly easy go of it, despite dealing with corners that were surprisingly out of square – something I’m used to dealing with in our 1880’s home, but wasn’t expecting to find in a 1980’s home. Apart from doing all the rip cuts with my circular saw and straight edge, I did all the mitering by hand – the mouldings on the front, as well as the banding on all the exposed plywood edges.

This did take me much longer than planned… partly because I was using hand tools, and partly because I was being careful, making sure everything came out just right.

This window seat is made out of birch ply and stock pine trim. Finished in fruitwood stain to match the trim in the house. Other than the stain, this project was left “unfinished.” I think we were waiting until my in-laws would be out of town again, so they wouldn’t have to deal with the fumes any more than necessary. I’d pretty much forgotten about that until now, (or perhaps they were going to take care of it,) which is probably why the colors don’t seem to match the existing trim in this photo, three years later.

Still, I’m remain pleased with the results. I just posted another photo with a “model” and slightly extended version of the story on my blog.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Van Gogh -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/