Karen Hetzer Artworks

I was going to take the day off today, but woke up feeling like making something, so off to Home Depot I went. Got a 1x12 board, a 1x10 board and some 1x4........project?.........make a bench. I used to make benches a few years ago and had a lot of fun playing with different designs and making them.
Today's was a pretty simple basic design and only took a couple of hours to make......
would have been less time but when I went to cut the 1x12 in half the wood split length wise, which meant I had to stop and glue and clamp. I've never had a board split like that before. Its only primed right now, haven't decided how to finish it. I think I should start making these again to sell in the shop......why not.
When I got home I started looking online for some different bench designs and also to see if I could find some tips on how to better assemble. Didn't find to much out there, but did come across this guy on youtube showing how to build a simple bench.
Warning, its about an hour long.......yawn........but had some very helpful tips. So if you've ever wanted to learn the basics of making a simple bench check it out......he even tells you how to do this if you don't have all the fancy shmancy tools :-)

I've just been looking through photos of my earlier work......before I even had a computer, so glad I kept photos!
Here's some old pictures of some of the simple wood projects I would make.......benches and little tables (love the little tables). They seem pretty simple now, but not bad for only having very basic tools. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a shop full of power tools.