How NOT to Make a Bench!

This was my first attempt at making a bench!  It was made from an old crib, and it was an 

EPIC FAIL!  

It may look decent from afar, but let me tell you, it is quite horrific!  

 I'm going to show you what we did....so then you will know What Not To DO!

To preface this project, I have been wanting to make a bench from an old headboard/crib for a long time!  However, I wanted it to be exactly how it was pictured in my head...nothing less! HA!

So I had been searching for months to find the perfect piece.

When I came across this Jenny Lind style crib on Craigslist for $50, I knew she was the one!

Here she is before I ruined her:

Because I wanted the bench to be the length of the crib (not the width), I cut the curved ends off of the width pieces

and attached them to the length pieces because I thought that would give me the length I wanted with the cute curved ends that I liked

But once it was cut, we weren't sure how to attach it, so we ended up taking a long screw and screwing it together right on the curve.....Not a good idea!

 We then built the frame for the seat, which went according to plan...no big issues here

The planks for the seat turned out ok, but the middle board was warped.  The black plank was actually the bottom rail of the crib

For my perfect bench, I really wanted arm rests on the sides.  So we took the other width piece of the crib, cut it in half, and cut off the bottoms to give the sides the height we wanted

Yeah, another BIG mistake!  But we finally got it all together.  She was awful, but we had spent ALL day on her, so I was going to paint her anyways!

I painted her using my homemade chalk paint with Valspar's Polar White.  Are you still thinking she looks ok?! Well, let me show you...

First of all, the sides are so crooked, and the entire bench leaned forward, so we had to add furniture levelers to the front legs of the bench!  

Also, the seat of the bench is too narrow...my bum hardly fits!!!! lol

 We couldn't get all the pieces to fit exactly, so we ended up with gaps like this everywhere:

And remember this...isn't it lovely?!

We also ended up with many of these, even after drilling holes first!

So here are my suggestions:

Don't try to piece together the back of the bench

Stick with one solid piece for the back!

Don't use wood that is bowed! 

Don't guess on the width for the seat

Measure an average chair or bench seat!

And Don't be like me, and expect it to look like it does in your head!!

I'm not sure when I'll be willing to give a bench another try...but I'm thinking I might stick to a headboard next time...

Until then she will sit on my back porch!

Therena

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