Window seat benches - then and now
Henry (Raleigh NC)
Years ago I made a window bench seat to fit a bay window. Here's part of it to give you an idea.
At the time these parents had a young boy and wanted a 'robust and hardy' design. The grandfather, an accomplished woodworker himself, declared that 'you could land a jetliner on it!". Aesthetics weren't primary, as it was to be covered with a cushion (seen on the left), so only the legs were to be seen. BTW these pics are the current state - post childhood, as the boy is now clearly an adult. I recall the biggest challenge I had was in ensuring that the piece FIT into the space - and went back at least once to re-measure.
Well fast forward a decade or two and a another member of the larger family decided that a bench seat would be a good addition to their kitchen area, as they were doing renovations already. This bench need not survive daily usage of any rambunctious children, but it also needed to fit the space of a bay window. The table in this case had narrow tapered legs, and appeared to my eye to be made of stained maple.
This is maple, 5/4 on the top and 8/4 for legs. I used the same '4 front, 4 back' leg layout, but this time they were much less stout (tapered from 2" thick stock, not from 4"). This piece was to be used without a cushion, so we decided on a continuous glued up top rather than a series of slats. The former piece had screws to connect the legs and the rest of the support structure', whereas this time I used dominoes (42!!) for the connections. In the dry fit I had alignment issues with one leg so I re-cut the mortises and used epoxy as a gap filler glue.
Here's a pic of the structure in a dry-fit, pre-leg tapering.
This is stained to match the table (close enough at least) with a mixture of TransTint dyes in a shellac (SealCoat) 'carrier' (wiped on initially and later sprayed) and top-coated with Target's polyurethane (I forget the product number).
This second one also fit like it was made for the space!
Henry W
Prolific creator of sawdust, and sometimes shavings - with the occasional completed project.
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