Back in 2018 I had barely touched a woodworking tool but after completing my custom DIY pallet shelves, I wanted to try out this woodworking stuff but I had no idea where to start or how. I had zero tools, knowledge or space. As so many others out there must be very familiar with, I have to thank my wife for laying a path before me.
We moved in together around then and were kitting out our new apartment. We had a dining table but only two dining chairs. We didn’t seriously need two more chairs but wanted something to have in case we had visitors.
Cue the magic words: “You’re gonna build a bench, right?”
To this day I don’t know if she was joking or serious, but it was the perfect opportunity to pick up the ball and run. The first in a long list of assignments from my better half. So now I have zero tools, knowledge, or space, but I have an idea. Again I didn’t know where to start so as we do in the 21st century, I asked Google. I probably punched in something along the lines of
“How to build a bench”, “DIY bench”, “Easy DIY wood bench”
This sent me down the rabbit hole of woodworking Youtube. After browsing I basically found some ideas and whittled them down to the simplest ones for my situation. If I were to do it now, maybe I’d make a nice shaker bench, or trestle bench. But I was looking for basic, available materials, and virtually no tools.
The answer:
This was simple and understandable enough to use as a starting point, thanks to Johnny Brooke. Although, the first issue was that I had no tools. And Johnny Brooke used tools, so I needed a plan. Well, I knew at the lumber yard you can get them to break down material for you. This was just 2×4 and 1×4 so… they can just cut it right? I mean, kind of. But now I see that this is really not the type of work they use the chopsaw at the lumber yard for.
Off I go to my local home centre, calculated the 2×4 and 1×4 I needed and gave them the cut list. He broke my boards down to approximate length and off I go with two grocery bags filled with rough lumber.
The first lesson I learned is that 2×4 is not actually 2 inches by 4 inches. So my dimensions were off but it wasn’t the end of the world. I laid out the pieces and could actually see the bench coming together! Now all I had to do was glue and screw it all together. At the time I also just naively assumed dimensioned lumber is flat, straight and square. Why wouldn’t it be? Well it is not, and was not, but somehow, I made it work.
The only drill I had was an electric IKEA drill which, as anyone who has used one will know, is for driving screws or bolts in IKEA furniture. Not for drilling 2” deep holes in lumber. I drilled one hole and tried to drive a screw in. It failed. The drill did not have the power to drive one single screw. And I don’t think I even had a screwdriver to drive by hand. But even if I did, did I really want to drive perhaps 50 screws by hand in this bench? Hell no. But I’m in this deep so I had to adjust the plan to suit the circumstances and forgot about the screws. We’re going for glue only and if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work.
The second issue was that I did not have any clamps. Or squares. But I went ahead and started glueing, layer by layer. When it was complete, I sat on each side for a while to compress it. I left it overnight and believe it or not, it held! It was solid, and still is. Despite the mistakes and challenges (and ignorance) this project was a moderate success.
My wife and I gave it a quick sanding to smooth out the rough spots and I completely skipped over finishing because you can’t do something if you don’t know it exists right? The final touch on this was just adding cheap adjustable feet to it because like I said the measurements went out the window when I realised 2×4 is not 2×4.
A cheap, simple, no tools project in the bag. After every project I get the itch to go a bit bigger, a bit more complex, challenge myself, use new tools and this was the beginning of that feeling for me. I had a taste, and had also discovered the bottomless pit of Youtube woodworking content so there was so much I was curious about, and constantly discovering by binging these videos. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) at this point I really believed machines were the way, the only way. The next big leap in my journey was discovering hand tools a while later.
This project was also more proof to me that DIY isn’t scary, or impossible. You can get started with minimal or no resources, just find a way to get the job done. And even if you do fail, or it doesn’t work, who cares? You’ve learned. You’ve moved forward on the path, you know better for next time. As you can see my workshop at the time was a bedsheet on the floor of my kitchen.
Sometimes you just need the right suggestion, the right idea to latch on to to get the ball rolling. This project was a challenge but simple enough to find solutions.
Fast forward to 2023. This bench has served many purposes in five years and it is still holding strong. I have considered cleaning it up properly, planing it down and properly finishing it but ironically this would be too big a project now to tackle. I would rather try to make one from scratch and do it right. Or a shaker bench, or a trestle bench.
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