How To Build A Curved Kitchen Bench

When we were unable to find a curved bench to fit our farmhouse inspired, cottage style kitchen table, we decided to make one ourselves.

However, when we stumbled on a few picnic benches at the curb, we opted to make them over instead.

With fabulous results and for free. Here's the complete how to...

Hello friends!

As promised, I'm back today with the full DIY, step by step tutorial, to show you exactly how we turned a pair of straight wooden picnic benches into a curved one

in an afternoon.

Now, I'm not going to lie, without my husband's skills and power tools, this never would've happened. It's definitely not my normal, quick and easy craft or do it yourself project.

However, since we couldn't find any instructions like this on the internet, I thought I would share the details in case someone else out there was looking for a similar solution to their own bench woes.

Isn't that what friends are for?

Of course, the easiest way to get a rustic farmhouse or cottage style curved bench for your kitchen or dining room table, would be to grab an old picnic bench and paint it.

Short of finding one on the street or in a shop, this is the next best thing.

And hold on tight, because in order to be thorough, we took a lot of pictures of this building cheat.

Here's how we built a curved dining bench.

So I explained in my last post that we'd found these two benches at the curb. Neither one was perfect.

They each had some portion of rot, so we decided to use the best parts of each to construct one sturdy curved bench for my 48" round table.

We started by measuring the area where the bench would fit and then measured the wood and marked it for length.

Next up, we had to make a pattern for the soft round curves. We knew we'd need something to trace, but our first instincts, to use a round bowl or can, were off.

The curve was too severe.

Then, while poking around in the garage, I spotted the tennis racket, with its oval head and knew it'd work better.

We placed it on the bench and used a pencil to create the perfect curve. We repeated this process on the other side, so the piece would be symmetrical.

It did take some measuring and some eyeballing to get both ends right. A little bit of science and a little bit of art. I like the art part.

We used the same racket on the other side of the bench to create the inner arch, as well. This way the curves on both sides of the bench would compliment each other.

When the pattern had been clearly marked, it was time to break out the saw. First he cut the length in a straight line.

Then he cut along the pencil pattern lines to rough out the shape. Keep in mind the bench top was still attached to the legs at this point.

Once the cuts were all made, then the legs were removed from the seat and the seat pieces were separated from one another.

The top pieces were then sanded and routered to soften all the sharp edges and add a professionally finished look to the bench top.

We peeked at the leg pieces on both benches and chose the best ones and then put the bench back together.

We didn't alter the height of any of the leg pieces, because they were already the proper height for the table.

But we did need to cut the small supporting cross beam to fit our new, shorter curved seat.

To finish it up, we - and you already know I've time I've written we here, I really mean he - used a two part putty epoxy to fill in some of the large gouges, dents and cracks in the wood.

This type filler mixes easily in the palm of your hand and dries quickly for sanding and painting.

Which was the next step.

Later that afternoon, we whipped out the same paint we used on the kitchen walls and gave it two coats. To give the wood that aged and weathered look, we roughed it up a bit, by running sandpaper over the edges.

And that, my friends, was that.

All done.

UPDATE!! It looks even more fabulous in the room with the new curtains I made...I think it's my favorite kitchen look so far. 

Super pretty and custom curved.

It wasn't exactly a quick and easy transformation.

But I finally have a custom curved bench for my kitchen nook.

And now, so can you.

🙂