DIY Outdoor Bench: Stylish and Simple on a Budget
Build a stylish DIY outdoor bench with this easy tutorial! Perfect for your garden, patio, or backyard, and budget-friendly too. No nails or screws required!
Skills Required: Beginner. You’ll learn how to make a bench the easiest way possible. I believe the most difficult part of this DIY project is using a table saw, which isn’t really hard (take your time!).
Every porch or outdoor space needs a bench, at least that’s what Steve and I decided the other day. Actually Steve has had the concept for this beautiful bench in his head for a while.
He had looked around at garden benches and wanted to make something without screws and hardware . . . completely with adhesive.
Yet he had some other qualifications as well – the bench had to be modern, inexpensive, load bearing (no falling apart please), and look great. We also wanted it to be an easy woodworking project so anyone could do it.
This DIY outdoor bench project meets all those qualifications and more!
Here’s how this bench came about. It was quite a coincidence that we were flipping through a Williams Sonoma Home catalog the other day and found this Larnaca Outdoor Coffee Table that looks somewhat similar . .
yet has one BIG difference. The Larnaca coffee table costs $1,295, while Steve’s version is $35. Now, ours is outdoor seating while the Larnaca is technically a coffee table, but the idea is the same. You can always modify the size of this DIY outdoor bench to fit your desired specifications.
So here’s how to build this bench, with a finished size of 16″ high x 40″ long x 13.5″ deep. You’ll find that building a bench is much easier than you think! Here’s how we built this piece of furniture.
Gather These Supplies
- Regular 2 x 4s – pine, not pressure treated (see Cut List below; also you may want to use pressure treated wood if your bench is going to be exposed to the elements, though it is more expensive)
- Exterior grade Liquid Nails or Titebond III (or other construction adhesive made for wood)
- Bar clamps
- Thompson’s WaterSeal and Stain (Nutmeg)
- Paintbrush
- Rag
- Table saw
- T-square – or something to make sure edges are square
- Hand held belt sander with a 80-grit and 120-grit
- Sanding blocks – 80-grit and 120-grit
- Surface protection – cardboard box, tarp, etc
- Optional – drill and four feet if you don’t want the bench to touch the patio or ground directly
Cut List – you might notice that the measurements don’t quite add up – this is because the ends were milled off and sanded to get the resulting finished size bench.
- 33.5″ long (five pieces)
- 40″ long (four pieces)
- 16″ long (ten pieces)
- 12.75″ long (eight pieces)
We already had a rain here so I also wanted to show you how well the stain works – the water just pools on top and comes right off . . . no soaking into the wood!
We hope you enjoy our DIY outdoor bench! The printable tutorial is below. Also I keep getting questions about the planters – I did make those as well! Find them here.
DIY Bench
Equipment
- Bar clamps
- 1 Belt sander
- 1 T-Square
Materials
- Regular 2 x 4s – pine see cut list in notes
- Wood glue we used Titebond III
- Thompson's WaterSeal
- Rag(s)
- Sanding block 80-grit and 120-grit
- Cardboard box or other surface protection
Video
Instructions
- Using the table saw, “mill” the 2″ edges of every piece of wood so that you get a very square edge (as opposed to the rounded edges that come on a 2×4). This will give your bench a more modern look.
- Cut the pieces of wood according to the cut list in the notes. Keep in mind, these measurements produced a finished bench that is 16″ high x 40″ long x 13.5″ deep . . . AND a little extra was left for the milling and sanding process. If you want to customize the size of your bench, you’ll need to adjust these cut lengths.
- Use your pieces to create a box joint. Place a 40″ piece of wood on the ground, with a 33.5″ piece in the center. On each end, you’ll place a 16″ long piece perpendicular to the other two pieces, as shown in the photo above. Make sure everything is even and as flush as possible (and use a t-square or other item if necessary to for a right angle), then glue into place and clamp.
- Add Liquid Nails to the wood, setting it up in your pattern as shown in the final image then adding clamps to hold it together. Remember that you’re doing a modified box joint, so you’ll have one long piece of wood, then one short piece, then long, then short, and so on.
- Once your bench is full assembled, keep it clamped and let it dry overnight.
- Undo the clamps and sand with the belt sander to get everything even. Don’t forget to sand with the grain! Sand until it’s completely smooth and flat. Do this on the legs, too. Then wipe away all of the sanding dust.
- Use stain to paint the bench. Applying stain is relatively easy. You can use a brush, paint it on, then wipe it off. Seal with Thompson's Water Seal.
- Add furniture feet to keep your bench off of the ground. Drill a hole, insert the foot, and repeat on all four corners of the bench bottom.
Notes
- 33.5″ long (five pieces)
- 40″ long (four pieces)
- 16″ long (ten pieces)
- 12.75″ long (eight pieces)
- organize the pieces of wood without gluing FIRST so that you understand how the bench goes together;
- begin at one end of your bench and start assembling with the Liquid Nails, using the clamps as placeholders as you go along;
- continue add Liquid Nails, wood, and increase the size of your box clamps until the bench is fully assembled
What do you think? If you have any similar projects or if you’ve done something like this and would like to share your tips, we’d love to hear them in the comments! Thank you!
If you love DIY benches, I’ve got another one you’re going to want to check out: Crate and Barrel Inspired Entry Bench. AND if you want to see another inspired knockoff we did – check out our West Elm DIY coffee table. We made it for $45 . . . original price of $999!
Anyone can tell me what 2 x 4s means in Europe?
From online: A “2×4” board starts out as something smaller than 2 inches by 4 inches and not specified by standards, and after drying and planing is reliably 1 1⁄2 by 3 1⁄2 inches (38 mm × 89 mm).
This is amazing! I love your husbands thought process. It happens so often that I’m pretty specific about what I want. But then it’s too expensive sadly I don’t have the skills your husband has.
Love it. Wish it was video though for those new to wood working. This will be my summer project.
LaQuana that’s a great idea! We just started doing video actually. So let me ask Steve – hopefully that’s something we can tackle this summer 😀
Did you make the planter boxes in the picture??
Yes we did! Here’s the link to that too:
https://diycandy.com/paver-planter/
Great tutorial! Thank you so much!
The planters look pretty cool, too. Are there instructions for those?
Glad you like those too! They are here:
https://diycandy.com/paver-planter/
I liked this bench well enough that I built one. The page was helpful but I used yellow glue and screws. All of that said when I got done the bench, I found that the 16″ height was a little too low to be comfortable to get up from and to sit down on (6’1″ tall and 70 years old). I built a couple of feet in a trestle table style by laminating up some pieces of 2 X 6 and making mortise and tenon joints between the bench and feet raising the level to 19″. This worked well enough and it looks OK but frankly I like the simple look of the original bench better. I suggest that if you build the bench make it 18″ high and proportion the length and width to preserve the proportions. That requires one more layer of 2Xs to get the width right.
Hi Cliff! This is a good tip for tall people – we’re short. Haha! Well not short, but I’m 5’6″ and my boyfriend is a little under 5’8″. So this is great information!
Cliff, I just made this and agree. The bench is a beautiful modern design but it would’ve hugely benifited from an 18″ length. Someone told me at the woodshop I go to that 18″ is the furniture makers go-to height. I’m debating on selling the one I’ve made to redo it again.
I made this bench and used 10 8 ft long. I made the bench 48″ long with 23″ tall feet. This makes the bench 15″ wide. The bench is now a table because I made it too tall. I will build another one 18″ tall. Use a chop saw with presets, for more accurate cuts. This greatly reduces sanding. Also I used 2.5″ square drive screws to put the inside pietces together and only glued on the outside pieces, The results are great just need to adjust the height.
So do you think your measurements make for a good sofa table? That’s what I want to create.
Hello so what will be good measurements if you want this exact look but for entryway table. I know taller for sure but not as wide.
Great looking bench, well designed, I am going to build one. Only one thing i question is the use of construction liquid nails, rather than regular wood glue. Time to dry may be an issue, ?? but I think of the bench construction as basically furniture joints
Looks brilliant I’m going to try it, is it heavy can it be easily moved by 2 people?
Aaron it’s not heavy at all (well, I guess depending on the wood?). I can move it myself, but two people definitely can 😀
Amy, great job on the bench and the tutorial. While the boards are drying, how do you stop the glue from leaking onto the bench surfaces?