Make a 5-board bench
The five board bench is a classic woodworking project. You literally only need five boards to make it: two legs are joined to two stretchers and one board is the seat. I took a little liberty with this by joining two narrower boards together to create the top and legs since I wanted the seat to be 14″ wide. Finding boards that wide (and not warped) can be a challenge. Most home centers sell 12″ wide pine boards (which are really about 11 1/2″ wide) that you could use if you wanted to shrink my design.
And modifying these benches is really the fun part. Since the actual construction of a five board bench is so basic, there is no limit to how you can spice it up with your own design ideas.
Plans
If you would like to make this version, please download my plans. They contain the dimensions as well as full-sized cutting templates for each piece. If you need help using the templates, here’s a video that explains the procedure.
