Benches for a summer house made of boards
One of the most necessary items in the country is an ordinary bench. It's nice to sit on the bench in the shade on a hot summer day or in the evening at the end of a hard day. Stores offer a wide selection of park and country benches, but a number of difficulties arise here. Firstly, the cost of such a product is quite high and the quality may not be satisfactory. And secondly, there is a problem with delivering the product to the summer cottage.
All these problems can be solved if you do DIY garden bench. The main advantages in this case are the availability of materials for manufacturing, as well as the ability to design a bench of a convenient configuration. Based on these tasks, we propose a design for a bench for your dacha, which you can make yourself. For this, 2 x six meters will be enough. By cutting them into pieces 1.5 meters long, they can be transported to their destination quite easily.
Get forty-millimeter boards to ensure sufficient reliability and strength of the bench. Considering the location of the benches on the street, gaps are made in the back and seat to remove rainwater. Therefore, the total seat width of the benches is forty centimeters, which ensures comfortable sitting on it. The 18° backrest angle is chosen for better ergonomics. The tools you will need are a hacksaw, a drill with wood drills, an electric jigsaw, a screwdriver (screwdriver) and available materials (square, pencil, tape measure).
Dimensions for a wooden bench
Making a bench for a summer house
First, let's prepare boards and beams of the required size. You need to have 5 one and a half meter boards, 2 360 mm boards. and two - 52 cm each, which are then sawn into 4 beams, which we will use to fix the legs and seat. The legs and backrest holder will be two 720 mm boards on which the cuts are made. The cut boards are planed to remove burrs. After removing the fissures, you need to make the edges of the boards and beams smooth. Before installing the country bench, the wood is treated with an antiseptic to extend its service life. To give the desired shade, you can use a colored antiseptic.
Scheme - drawing: Bench with back
We will begin the installation of a bench made of boards with the legs, which we will connect to each other with crossbars and self-tapping screws. When using boards and timber to construct a bench for the dacha, you must be very careful about the correct formation of the legs. The stability of the structure itself depends on them. By deepening the legs into the ground you can significantly improve the stability of the bench. You can use hemp or log stumps as legs. It is advisable to connect the joints of the bench with wooden dowels (as shown in the video).
Self-tapping screws are used to attach the seat and back boards to the bench legs. If they are not long enough, you need to make a hole in advance that is larger than the diameter of the screw head. The fasteners are made on the reverse side to make the fasteners invisible. Having determined the most convenient angle of the backrest, we secure the stops with self-tapping screws using corners and plates.
Installation of bench backs
At the final stage, the legs of the garden bench are fastened together by installing the lower cross member. Treating them with mastic will help prevent your feet from absorbing rain moisture. To do this, a bucket with a protective composition is heated over a fire until the mastic becomes liquid. Turning the garden bench over, carefully brush the legs over the entire surface with a brush. For complete drying, you need to wait one day and only then further processing is carried out.
The assembled product is coated with yacht varnish or special impregnation to protect it from moisture. Naturally, the varnish coating looks much better, but at the same time the varnish surface becomes colder. Covering the surface of a garden bench with one layer makes it rough. You can achieve a smooth, shiny surface of the bench using special technology.
At the same time, after waiting for the first layer of varnish to dry, the board is treated with sandpaper and coated with varnish twice more; after drying, you can use the bench.
Note! If you want to save time and purchase a finished product, we advise you to contact the Kupistol company. It is famous for the quality of the furniture it sells, excellent service (fast delivery, same-day assembly, return options) and low prices. There is a huge assortment of furniture for home and garden, so every buyer will be able to choose furniture based on different criteria such as design, material, cost, etc.
- the oldest piece of furniture that has become available to man. A wooden piece of driftwood, simply hewn a little with a stone ax and brought into a cave - this is the great-great-ancestor of all modern furniture, closer to which are wooden benches, which have not lost their relevance and relevance - neither in the house, nor, especially, in landscape design.
Garden benches made of wood: choosing a style
It may seem only at first glance that a bench is far from the most important element in landscape design, but real professionals say that it is with the bench that garden design begins and ends. Otherwise, what is all this effort and work for, if no one can enjoy and appreciate it?
That is why it is important to place the bench correctly, choosing a place from which the most beautiful and attractive view opens, and the bench itself can become an elegant accent that complements the beauty of the garden.
A comfortable bench in the garden will become a place where you can hide from the hustle and bustle, admire nature, read a book or listen to music, dream, or just relax. At the same time, wooden benches for a summer residence are a powerful and effective “weapon” of landscape design; they can be used to zone a site, mark boundaries, etc.
At the same time, garden benches differ in their functional purpose:
- front doors - they are installed at porch, at the entrance of the house. These are wooden decorative benches, richly decorated with carvings, they become a favorite place for photo sessions
- dining rooms - they are usually placed near B-B-Q, on terraces, in places where the family likes to dine outdoors
- garden - small benches, next to flower beds, flower garden or plot, it’s good to sit on them and relax while working in the garden. Usually it is very simple in shape, without decorations or aesthetic delights.
- relaxation - usually they are “hidden” in the most secluded corner of the site, away from strangers and even your own eyes, where the whole environment is conducive to relaxation. The main criterion is comfort, and you don’t have to be modest with the size - you can climb onto such a bench with your feet and even lie down
To make the bench comfortable, you should adhere to the following dimensions:
- the optimal height is about 40-50 cm, while the legs will rest comfortably on the ground and rest
- seat width - about 50-55 cm. The seat is made with a slight inward slope - 5-12 cm, so it is more convenient to lean on
- back height – 35-50 cm
- backrest tilt - within 15-45 degrees
- if armrests (hand rests) are installed, then the optimal height for them is 15-20 cm, measured from the seat
Advice! When selecting material for a bench, preference should be given to wood that is especially resistant to moisture and decay - oak, larch, hazel, cherry. But teak is considered to be the “champion” in terms of strength; its wood contains natural resins that protect it from rot and insects (bark beetles, termites).
The choice of the shape and type of bench depends on both your preferences and the style in which the garden is decorated.
For country style, a bench that is as simple in shape as possible, natural in color or painted in a discreet brown shade, is suitable. For the Provence style - a slightly antique bench, quite modest in terms of decoration, painted in blue , white , violet or blue color.
- The bench must be periodically painted (opened with varnish). It is best to do this at the beginning of the season, before thoroughly cleaning the wood from any remnants of old paint.
- in hot weather, the bench should be placed in the shade - not only you, but also the tree will be comfortable there - ultraviolet radiation negatively affects the quality of wood
- regularly check the fastening elements (bolts, screws, nails), if necessary, fasten them all the way, do not allow the structure to loosen
- If you notice traces of rot on one board, replace it immediately, do not let it spread further
Respite during the day is as necessary as sleep at night. Have a smoke break while working in your summer cottage, sit in the shade after long working days, enjoy the long-awaited evening atmosphere, or even play sports - comfortable wooden benches are used for this.
Buying luxurious furniture for the street - now few people can afford to ruin their wallet. Making a bench with your own hands according to the drawings is a triple benefit:
- A practical product made of wood, in which all individual wishes and elements are taken into account, an order of magnitude higher than stamped factory models focused on saving material. Ordering a bench from a separate craftsman also does not always meet expectations.
- Do-it-yourself manufacturing will only require costs for consumables, and if you already have them, then it will cost no investment at all.
- The construction of interior and landscape elements for a dacha to your own taste can hardly be called work. It is always a pleasure to skillfully create something new for yourself, so that you can then be proud and enjoy the efforts of your work.
Why made of wood?
Wood is the most suitable material to make a bench with your own hands. This is due to its qualities:
Requirements for material and tools
The wood must be of high quality. For the bench, you should choose elements without knots, cracks, or rotten areas. The ease of processing and joining parts, as well as the service life of the finished product, depend on this.
Special attention: only dry wood is suitable for starting work. A damp board is the reason for the deformation of the bench and its destruction when weather conditions change. Before processing, the material must be thoroughly dried.
The breed is not limited to anything: to make a garden bench for a summer house, any available wood will do. Oak is the most durable, but heaviest. If you stand on a bench all your life in one place, it is better to choose it.
Pine is the optimal choice for any product options. It is the most common building material: wood will be easy to find at home or purchase at the nearest base; affordable, moderately durable, less susceptible to temperature influences. Linden, larch and other species are also used.
Making a bench with your own hands is carpentry work and will require simple carpentry tools. For safety and quality reasons, it is recommended to use only reliable, working tools. Firmly secured hammer handles, plane blades, a sharpened hacksaw or a high-quality blade on an electric saw are the key to effectively achieving results.
Wooden bench design
The general structure of a wooden bench will be useful for those who decide to make it themselves. Before starting work, it is recommended to make a drawing of the future creation with the dimensions and location of the elements. It will help you quickly produce the necessary wooden bench parts and correctly assemble them into one garden structure. Each element of the drawing performs its own function, without which the product will be unfinished, unreliable or not convenient enough:
- The legs of the bench are supports. For comfortable planting, they are brought to a height of 40-50 cm from the ground. A lower or higher position forces you to take an unnatural posture, from which rest becomes torture and unfavorable tension on the spine. Depending on the length, wooden benches are provided with a different number of elements: maximum every 150 cm. The rear and front supports are at the same level with each other. Usually two pairs are needed, since most wooden benches are small in size.
- Between the legs and seats of the bench, the diagrams provide for intermediate transverse and longitudinal beams, because the plane of the seat is not always formed by one board. They must be attached along the perimeter of the seat to the tops of the legs, but if the distance is large, there may be additional transverse elements attached to the longitudinal beams. Intermediate wooden supports may be absent only if the seat of the bench is made of wide boards.
- The seat is formed from elements nailed to the intermediate beams and extending 5-25 cm beyond the legs. It is recommended to choose even boards.
- The screed is an element of the strength of the bench. In the drawings it can be made in different forms, but the function is the same: rigidly fastening the wooden frame. This can be one beam or board, the ends connected to the legs of the bench at a height of 20-30 cm, or corner bars connecting each leg with intermediate beams. The screed prevents the wooden supports from loosening.
- The back is a functional element that divides all benches into two configurations: with and without it. It serves for greater comfort and relaxation of the back. The back should not be vertical at 90° - this is an uncomfortable position. The optimal angle of inclination from the seat plane is 110-120°. The presence of a backrest requires modernization of the drawing of the legs. The support area needs to be larger. Geometrically, the load is distributed across the seat and the horizontal projection of the backrest. The back legs of a wooden bench are moved further from the middle or tilted so that the lower points go back. The back consists of supports and a plane. The first ones are attached to the legs at an angle, and boards or slats are attached to them.
General manufacturing principles
The wooden parts of the bench are assembled using screws or nails. The second option is recommended. High-quality long nails will provide a stronger connection, while soft modern self-tapping screws often break and over time may no longer hold the rigidity of a wooden frame.
The wooden surfaces of the seat and back must be carefully sanded. The functional planes of the bench can be of different shapes: straight or curved to add beauty and greater convenience. For example, the back of the seat can be made in the shape of a boat, and the edges of the seat and back are rounded. The result is achieved by changing the shape of the transverse beams in the drawing (the upper edges are cut out with a wave).
In order to save material and time, you can often find benches where there are gaps between the slats in the seat and back. A simple example: city alleys. This is not inconvenient and, in general, practical, but it is recommended to avoid such savings when making it yourself. A solid garden bench made of wood with full-fledged elements is more beautiful and safer for health. The spaces between the seat and back act as draft windows: after sitting on a bench, an unseasoned person can get sick.
The order of assembly is not determined by anything. If the seats and backrests consist of many slats, it is recommended to first make and fasten the frame elements and screed according to the drawing, and then form the planes. If there is no backrest, and the surface of the bench is one large and strong board, it is advisable to use it as a basis for connecting the remaining elements.
Wood processing is a mandatory process. Immediately after making the bench, it is necessary to impregnate the wood with protection against insects and fungi. Further painting will not only give the wood product a finished look, but will also protect it from external weather influences.
Decorative value
Those who say that there is no beauty in wooden benches simply have no taste. This is one of the landscape and interior elements that form the overall appearance of a cottage or room. Recreation areas primarily attract the attention of visitors and the owners themselves. Therefore, beautiful handmade wood products are a wealth for the home and soul.
Experienced craftsmen, designers and creative newcomers often surprise with their unique solutions. By using seemingly the most inappropriate wooden elements - knotty logs, stumps, old driftwood - masterpieces are created that people are proud of and admire. Only an individual approach to making benches with your own hands will help make your summer cottage unusual and pleasant.
Application of products
The bench is an ambiguous element. The use of finished products extends to summer cottages, domestic conditions, and for specific needs. Some of its structural features during manufacture depend on where the wooden bench will be used.
The most popular garden bench is because it is necessary in any garden yard. The version without a backrest is characterized by the presence of only the seat surface; there is no element of vertical back support. Such a bench for a summer house is less convenient, but it is easier to make it with your own hands according to the drawings.
The option without a backrest is chosen by those who do not like to sit still for a long time: a couple of minutes of respite and then back to work. The light weight of the product and simple load distribution allow the use of thin wooden or even 2 metal legs. for a summer residence it is more attractive, convenient, but more difficult to manufacture.
A beautiful and comfortable bench can be placed on the porch of the house, in a gazebo or indoors, where it will play the role of full-fledged wooden furniture. Benches designed for this purpose are often supplemented with soft material: the backs and seats are covered with a blanket or bedspread, upholstered with leatherette on cotton wool or foam rubber, faux fur, etc.
For sports needs (for example, dumbbell training), a wooden bench without a back is a great option to get the benefits. The optimal surface covering for the seat is linoleum with lining.
With the onset of summer, it becomes impossible to sit in the house - you want to spend as much time as possible outside. Today we will show you three ways to make benches with your own hands.
Each version of the bench requires its own skills, but the first bench can be easily made even by someone who does not have special skills in working with tools.
DIY benches in half an hour
Here is an example of the simplest bench you can think of. If you have all the materials, this bench can be assembled in a matter of minutes! 
All you need are eight cinder blocks with holes through them, four pieces of wood, and construction adhesive. It is better to select the beams according to the width of the holes in the blocks, but if they are a little narrower, then this is not a problem.
Don't forget to sand the wooden surfaces to avoid splinters.
The blocks and beams can be painted if desired to give the bench a more pleasing appearance.
All that remains is to install the blocks vertically, having previously lubricated the contacting side surfaces with glue, and insert the bars into the holes. Once the glue dries, the bench is ready! If you wish, you can equip it with pillows: it will be more beautiful and comfortable.
How to make your own wooden bench with a metal frame
If you have at least minimal welding skills, then here is a project that will suit you. The bench stands on two metal supports and is simple but reliable. You will need a profile pipe or a thick plate for supports and, of course, a wide board for the seat.
If you are far from welding work, then you can assemble a metal frame at the corners and fasten it with metal screws.
After the bench is assembled, the metal legs should be treated with a metal primer, which will protect them from corrosion, and then the legs should be painted with metal paint for outdoor use.
The wooden seat of the bench must be painted with varnish or paint for outdoor use. This simple DIY bench option will serve you for many years.
You can experiment and create your own bench design. For example, such a laconic designer bench is quite suitable for you because... it is done exactly according to the same principle.
How to make your own bench with a backrest
It is easy to attach a backrest to a bench standing on metal supports.
To do this, you need to take metal plates and bend them at the desired angle. This is easy to do even with your hands, or you can fix the edge of the plate and bend it with a hammer. The plates will act as a support for the back. We fix the plates from below under the seat at one end, and screw the backrest to the other end.
It is better to recess the bolts on the back (and on the seat too) into the wood so that they do not create discomfort.
If you don’t want to mess around like that, you can use bolts with a round head.
A more advanced solution for the backrest is to attach it to the frame rather than to the seat. This design is certainly more reliable.
To do this, you will have to weld some parts at an angle, because it is more comfortable to sit on a bench with an inclined back. And this requires great care.
There are special devices that allow you to fix the parts to be welded at the correct angle - they are called magnetic holders or positioners.
But there is also a “folk” method. Make a wooden block and attach the parts to it while welding. This way you can weld the required number of supports, precisely maintaining the same angle.
All that remains is to attach the backrest to the frame, and the bench is ready!
DIY benches from old furniture
Old unnecessary furniture can still serve us in the country. You can practically make benches from it yourself.
We don’t throw away an unnecessary crib, but make a bench out of it with our own hands. One of the headboards of the bed will be the back of the bench. The second backrest is divided into two parts: the lower part is the lower front part of the bench; the upper part is divided into two parts and serves as the handrails of the bench. The bench has a convenient drawer for storing pillows.
A wooden bench repurposed from a regular size bed. Provide a small drawer in the seat for storing pillows, then you won’t have to carry pillows from home all the time and come up with places to store these pillows.
Running out of beds? You can make a bench with your own hands from an old shelf - paint it and make a pillow, that's all the work. But this simple bench can turn into almost a throne if you have an old unnecessary door in stock. You can use it to make a beautiful high back for a bench. By the way, old wooden windows can be adapted for the same purposes.
Even if you don’t have a single board, you can still make a bench for your favorite dacha!
That's all! Simple benches with your own hands can be made in just a few hours, without spending much on materials. And it will definitely become a favorite vacation spot for the whole family. After all, it’s so nice to read on a bench, drink tea, chat with friends, or even work while taking your laptop with you!
Garden benches are the most popular small architectural forms. They can be made in any size and design, but in addition to their direct purpose, benches also perform a decorative function. You can make a garden bench for yourself using our drawings and photographs.
How to make a bench from waste materials
The easiest way is to make a bench out of wood. This is a traditional material for garden furniture, affordable and easy to process. But even in this case, you can save money by choosing as the main material the one that literally lies under your feet.
The first option is trees, poles and stumps from your own site or a nearby forest plantation, in which sanitary felling is carried out.
Having carefully cut off a couple of medium-sized stumps, they can be placed on the base of the bench. Use poles to make a bottom crossbar for structural rigidity. And for sitting, loosen part of the trunk on the circular. If there is no equipment for longitudinal sawing, then you can take an unedged board 75 mm thick.
In this example, the bench is already more comfortable - in addition to the seat, it also has a backrest. The model is a little more complicated, since you will have to find a higher part of the trunk and process it in two steps - first make a profile cut with a “ledge”, and then split the workpiece into two halves.
And to assemble the next bench, you will need:
- two short logs of the same diameter for the base;
- two medium-thick poles for back support;
- one long log, sawn into two halves (for the seat and back).
In short logs, you need to choose a groove so that the long log fits into it. Then the seat is secured in the grooves, and each pole is fixed at two points - to the base and to the seat. For fastening, it is better to choose powerful self-tapping wood bolts.
Another budget material for a country bench is pallets (wooden pallets). But not just any pallet is suitable for making garden furniture. Ideally, you need a good edged board, a so-called Euro pallet, which can be identified by the EUR marking.
In principle, the standard width of a Euro pallet is somewhat large for a seat - 80 cm. You can shorten it to 67 cm by cutting it along the contour of the central bar. But you don’t have to do this. Here are some examples of simple designs with different base and seat options:
1. A bench made of four pallets uncut to width. Three serve as the base, and the fourth serves as the back. You will have to remove some of the support bars from the pallet for the backrest, and ensure the rigidity of the bench using wooden slats.
2. In this case, four pallets are also used, but already trimmed. Three ropes woven with a braid are used to secure the backrest, and wallpaper nails are used for decoration.
3. This bench is made from just two pallets. One is whole, and the second is cut and, as it were, bent at an angle - it serves as both a seat and a backrest. The design is good for its mobility - there are small wheels as legs.
Perhaps the only inconvenience of using Euro pallets as a source material is the standard dimensions of 80x120 cm. They to some extent limit the possibilities for creativity. The use of ordinary lumber (boards, beams and beams) allows you to make a garden bench to suit every taste.
Board and block
It’s worth saying right away that any bench drawing can be adjusted for specific conditions. The only limitation is that the thickness of the board and the cross-section of the beam are sufficient to provide load-bearing properties.
Below is a drawing of a bench, which is made of only three “paired” elements:
- seat and back;
- a short support (back leg) made of a trapezoid-shaped board;
- long support (front leg).
1- front leg; 2 - rear leg; 3 - seat; 4 - back; 5 - front view; 6 - side view
The result is a stable structure with a triangle at the base and two transverse stiffeners.
This is what this bench looks like in real life.
This drawing shows the bench in a more complex design. To make it, you need a 40x140 mm board (supports, back and seat), a 40x70 mm block (short bundles of supports) and a 20 mm board (long bundle between the sidewalls).
And this is the same design, but using a board and a block 75 mm thick. Small differences in the base and attachment of the ligaments are not fundamental.
In principle, there is only one condition - the boards in the seat are fastened with a small gap, sufficient to compensate for the expansion of the wood under high humidity.
Large forms
Wooden benches in a “large format” look original.
For example, here is a “thick” unedged board across the entire width of the log. Covered with transparent varnish, it conveys the natural beauty of wood with all its color transitions.
From rounded logs you can build not only a cottage or a bathhouse, but also a garden bench like this.
And from timber you can assemble an original chair that can serve not only under a canopy, but also in the open air - removable cushions can be easily brought into the house in bad weather.
Stone and wood
Stone, like wood, also fits organically into the landscape of a suburban area. Of course, a smooth slab is practically never found in nature, but you can use sawn stone.
The next option is easier to implement - the bench is made of small blocks of wild stone. And since such a surface is not only cold, but also uneven, you can’t do without pillows.
Pillows add comfort, but you have to constantly bring them in and out. That is why wood is used for seats on garden benches, regardless of the base material. This is how this original bench uses a gabion (a mesh cage filled with stone, crushed stone or pebbles) at the base.
Concrete is no less popular for making the base of a bench. But it’s difficult to make a form with a complex contour for pouring at once, but small formwork is simple. And even a “cold seam” when poured in two steps will not affect the strength of the structure (such as in this photo).
Another option for artificial stone is hollow concrete building blocks. It is enough to fasten them together with good masonry glue, and lay a beam in the cavity, and the bench is ready.
Metal and wood
The simplest benches on a metal frame use a square profile.
You can weld two sidewalls in the shape of the letter “H” from a profile pipe, and a solid wooden seat will also serve as a “stiffener.”
The following example also uses solid wood as a stiffening element, but the supports are made in the form of a square with a cross member for attaching the seat.
And this is the simplest self-supporting structure made of a square profile, the strength and rigidity of the welded base is sufficient for the seat to be made from a wooden block.
The following photo shows a factory-made bench.
But if you have a pipe bender in your home workshop (and it’s easy to make one yourself), then bending two types of arches and a “wave” from a round pipe is easy. Then the metal blanks must be welded, plastic plugs must be placed on the legs (sold for any profile and pipe size) and the bars must be secured to the “wave”.