Cubby-Bench
2022
Cubby-Bench
I was looking for a woodworking project and asked Jake if he needed anything for his apartment. He mentioned he could use a Cubby for shoes. We looked at the space and decided the dimensions and decided to make a bench to sit on too. I had been planning a similar project for our laundry room so.... I decided to build two!
I found a pretty good design on YouTube. He used a solid pine top stained in Minwax Honey color and 3/4 Plywood with pine framing for the cubby. I really liked the color of the honey stain so I used that for the top and painted the cubby Grey. I modified his design some and tried to reduce the weight a little but it has to be sturdy enough as a bench.
As usual I made a spreadsheet and designed the details of the cubby. I start with creating the Material List, then Cutting Diagrams for the raw material. Usually I painstakingly lay out the cutting diagrams to minimize material waste. However, for ease of transportation and handling I used 4x4 material instead of a more efficient 4x8 so, quite a bit of excess MDF on this project I will use on another project. Finally, I made my detailed Build Instructions with the help of the YouTube video.
For the Bench Top I had gotten an edged glued pine board from my parents house that would work perfect for one cubby and bought a pre-made pine board from Menards for the other Cubby. All I had to do was cut them to size and chamfer the top edge. One coat of Honey Stain and three coats rub on satin poly. Done.
For the Cubby I used 1/2" MDF for the top, bottom and middle pieces (rails) to save weight and for strength 3/4 MDF for the four Stiles and Back.
Laid out Dadoes and Half Laps in the top, bottom and back to accept the stiles. Laid out a Half lap in the top and bottom to accept the back. Finally, laid out dadoes in the stiles to accept the middle shelves. Brad nails to frame the cubby then re-enforced with screws. Small pieces of 1/2" MDF around the bottom perimeter for a base to raise it up off the ground a little. To cover the dadoes and edges I made a 1" face frame out of 1x4 pine for the front and similar on the sides but re-sawed to 1/4" thickness. Finally, for a finished look, added a 1/4" round at the base.
Painted the Cubby's Grey (2 coats) then attached the Tops. These are heavier than I would like but nice and sturdy to be used as a bench.
Two Cubbies! One for our laundry room and one for Jake's new townhouse. Done! This wasn't my best precision work and I made some dumb mistakes along the way but it was fun and they turned out nice.
Overall Dimensions 21H x 47.5W x 15D and probably weigh a hundred pounds each.
