Project Information
I built this last fall from left over 2×6's and 4×4's from "The Great Picket Fence War of 2007". (During which, I was soundly defeated.) So to pour salt into the wound I built this from leftovers.
THE BENCH bottom is a three-sided box of unknown purpose and origin that someone left in the old house we bought. Its legs are 4×4 cutoffs about 2 1/2 feet long and the back of the bench is scrap pressure treated pine ripped into strips to make it go further. T
THE FRAME The sides make up the structure and are through mortise and tennon jointed 2×6 and 4×4. The rest is 2×6 and strips of oak for the top trellis. The lattice is made of cutoffs of the plastic stuff. (Got to love that…..no painting.) The lattice is held in with a mitered 2×6 frame and 1 inch oak strips.
My wife, who loves to go to antique auctions with her sister and auctioneer brother-in-law, provided the material for the arbors back. Apparently, at one auction, caught up in the excitement and not wanting to come home empty handed, the two sisters decided they could not live without the old, rusted, half-rotten iron gates that make up the back of the arbor. This is the real reason for building the arbor. I needed to find some use for the rotten iron gates! Surely, these old gates were hand made by some ancient craftsman.
We all know we must pay respect to the skills of the craftsmen who have gone before us, no matter the medium they choose for their work.
So the moral to this story is one I have read from other LJ's before, There really is no such thing as scrap wood.(or iron) Gonna grow a vine on it now. LJ's rule!
THE BENCH bottom is a three-sided box of unknown purpose and origin that someone left in the old house we bought. Its legs are 4×4 cutoffs about 2 1/2 feet long and the back of the bench is scrap pressure treated pine ripped into strips to make it go further. T
THE FRAME The sides make up the structure and are through mortise and tennon jointed 2×6 and 4×4. The rest is 2×6 and strips of oak for the top trellis. The lattice is made of cutoffs of the plastic stuff. (Got to love that…..no painting.) The lattice is held in with a mitered 2×6 frame and 1 inch oak strips.
My wife, who loves to go to antique auctions with her sister and auctioneer brother-in-law, provided the material for the arbors back. Apparently, at one auction, caught up in the excitement and not wanting to come home empty handed, the two sisters decided they could not live without the old, rusted, half-rotten iron gates that make up the back of the arbor. This is the real reason for building the arbor. I needed to find some use for the rotten iron gates! Surely, these old gates were hand made by some ancient craftsman.
We all know we must pay respect to the skills of the craftsmen who have gone before us, no matter the medium they choose for their work.
So the moral to this story is one I have read from other LJ's before, There really is no such thing as scrap wood.(or iron) Gonna grow a vine on it now. LJ's rule!
