Kitchen Benches - Part I

We have a very small kitchen in a very small duplex. The only complaint we have is the lack of storage in the kitchen  - we decided to create our own and hopefully be able to host 4 people comfortably at our table. Nate and I started to dream about how to do this. Should we make a cabinet, benches, or boxes? There are so many ideas and not a lot of space.

In the end we went with the benches. The house I grew up in had benches in the kitchen with TONS of storage underneath. I loved those benches, they where comfortable and when I ate at them I felt like I a roman goddess getting to eat while reclined. Which is probably why Mom & Dad always ended up sitting on the benches before us kids could.

Here is where we are going to put the benches:



All of the wood pictured here we got for free from Nate's employment: (holler!)



I spent this past Friday staining about half of that including the 100 1x2 slats....

The Habitat for Humanity ReStore has a great selection of stains and paints, so for $2 I got this sweet "Golden Oak" stain. I like it a lot!



And on Saturday, after drilling, sanding, staining, and checking measurements for hours all we got was this little preview:



But I love it already. Its going to be awesome to have storage and seating for more than just two! :-)