We've had this old park bench for years. We don't often sit in it, we just use it as garden art. It has been in numerous spots in the landscape and has been sitting here at the end of the porch filling space since the Lilac Tree died and had to be removed.
It makes sort of a nice backdrop for the flowers, but its sitting days were over because the wood was so rotten. For the past couple of years I just set things on it, like a garden tool so I didn't forget to put it back etc. My husband kept threatening to throw it out. It wasn't very useful, but it would leave a big empty space.... I had sort of made up my mind that I would replace it with an inexpensive metal bench from a big box store. One that wouldn't rot. Ever. But that seemed like the lazy way out, not to mention wasteful and I couldn't find anything I liked anyway. Or at least nothing inexpensive (this one cost $7 at a yard sale).
This spring, the seat board that the side-to-side stabilizer braces were screwed into broke loose. It would no longer even stand up straight. It leaned like the tower of Pisa. Moving it to mulch or weed around it was like trying to relocated a fifty pound slinky. Something was going to have to be done. A decision made. Action taken. One day my husband must have got some inspiration from somewhere because, out of the blue, he asked me "do you want to help me tear apart that bench?". Yup. I do. So, being of the mind set that if we know how to do it and have the tools and supplies, then we should do it. We decided to renovate it. And that is how we get ourselves into these little predicaments.
We tore it apart, wire brushed and painted the ends, and my husband dug around in the scrap lumber pile until he found enough suitable black walnut boards leftover from another project to rip down to the right size. All that sounds so easy but it's time consuming. It didn't cost us anything but elbow grease. And I suppose the scrubbing and the ripping and the sanding and the sealing was easy compared to putting that bugger back together. The boards were measured and cut to length and precisely drilled so that we could just bolt it back together again. But apparently, at the bench factory, either the wood is drilled to fit each hole in the iron channel, or they just made the holes really big to allow for adjustment. Hard to say. Whatever proper assembly procedure there is was eluding us. After some trial and error we found that we had to start at the front and place each slat in order. The thing acted like it was ticklish and kept trying to squirm out of alignment. And we couldn't bolt the last few slats in until we had all of them in the channel. Otherwise the last one wouldn't go in at all. This was one of those projects that, as my husband likes to say, by the time we figure out how to do it right it will be all over.
But it sure looks nice, and it is STURDY. I am so used to it being all wibbly-wobbly that I almost don't know what to do. I can sit on it without getting filthy, or falling through, or collapsing it like a deck of cards.
It makes much better garden art now. It almost looks like fine furniture.
Rustic was fine, but glossy is better. It seems to say "come and have a seat. Enjoy the garden."
I guess the hassle was worth it after all.
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