Storage Bench: step 1

Well, this weekend I wasn't able to get the garage clean enough to lay out the forms for my boat, but I did make enough room for another project, a bench for our deck. I want to eventually make two of these, six feet long to go with a table I'm also planning to build. So HGTV style here's the steps for making these benches.

Step one. Clear an area for working. When you struggle with garage hoarding in a 16x12 space, this can be quite a project.

There we go! This space is easily augmented by a workbench I like to call, my truck:

The next step is to cut down a 4x8 sheet of OSB (6$) to 6ft x 16 inch pieces. The hardware store was nice enough to rip the sheet into three pieces, so I need to make them 6ft. A lot of people would bust out a table saw for this kind of thing, but I find that you get a straighter cut with a circular saw and a clamped fence.

As you can see, most circular saws have a flat base and simple measurements to either side. I usually clamp down my level as a fence, but a 2x4 will work great too.

Here 'tis after the cut, note that the fence has to be the correct spacing from your cut line.

Step.. uh, 4? Is to cut down some 2x4s - 2x4x8's are about 4$ a piece. The "header" here needs to be 6'4", so that the sides fit underneath correctly. I cut two pieces 12.5" to go all the way to the bottom, and then a piece to fit between them was 64.75". This bottom piece doesn't add any real structural advantage, but it will keep the OSB from being exposed at the bottom.

This is a dry fit in the bed of my truck. By doing this I could measure for a center 2x4 exactly 9".

Step 5 (I think) is to lay out the frame on the floor. As seen below I've used a laser square to make this (more or less) true.


Now that the frame is layed out, hit it with some huge globs of construction adhesive or liquid nails.

Now, if you're like me, you're not a total perfectionist. At this point I slapped down the OSB right onto the glue. Finally, I used my compressor and nail gun to drop about 5o nails into this thing, careful to make sure the nails went into 2x4s. Between the adhesive and the nails, this thing is solid.

The trick is to remember that the "good" face of everything is face down.

All set! Now I need to make another one of these identical to this one.

There are several advantages to this design.

• Super easy to build.
• Reworked for different sizes easily.
• Super cheap. These materials total less than 50$.
• Tool cheap- no need for jigs or exotic tools. I used my compressor and a nail gun, but drywall screws or a simple hammer would work too.
• Since the OSB is inset into the 2x4s, there are a lot of things you can with it later. You can paint the OSB, stain it, drop in inlays (which I'm doing with the top where you can sit) or put in carvings or moldings.

Still to come: how to make the bottom/top/sides.