Mini-Bench for my Mom

With so much scrap wood we thought it would be a nice idea to build something for my mom. She does a lot of gardening in the back and currently uses one of these:

(photo source http://www.ioffer.com/i/little-tikes-blue-table-chair-set-4-chairs-pu-in-il-170989570)

I am referring to the gray chair. Except her's is blue, and the back legs bend in a little and it's really beat up. So it's time to upgrade! She likes to eat sometimes on the coffee table (low) by the television, so knowing her she'll want to use it inside for that instead.

I got to cut out the pieces using this thingy, a Delta ShopMaster. It's a saw of some sort, not a jig saw, or a band one. Well I forgot which kind it is, so let's just call it a thingy.

It wasn't scary like a table saw. At least that one I remember! Anyway the pieces were cut out with sharp angles. We stuck them all together with some clamps and sanded them (I did). Here are the rounded edges:

These are reclaimed redwood, run through a planer (Delta of course), although there are some striations because we hit some nails along the way. You can see them particularly on the face of the first board. Time to get a new blade! Here are all the pieces separated:

The shape is so there is an indent for your butt?! He thought it was a good idea. It *is* very nice to sit on, I never would have guessed that myself. I don't spend much time looking at chair seats. And the finished product:

Ok so I lied. It's not done. Here it is only rubbed down with mineral spirit, to bring out the grain and get rid of excess sawdust, I think? Anyways there is still some more sanding to do, like between the boards. I don't think I'm going to stain it. As you can see there are some lighter pieces in there, turns out there was some cedar in the mix. But I think it'll still look nice with just some ClearCoat on it :)

Jumping ahead of myself and posting before its done! Well I was just excited is all, it's cute! Til later...

:)

PS: Pictures taken with my iPhone 3G this time. I was too lazy to bust out the real camera. But I get my iPhone 4 in a little over a week. Not sure if that's a good thing. Wish we weren't limited to certain brands just cause of our carrier!