Hi there! I’m Shayna from The Wood Grain Cottage and I’m back to share another project with you! We’re in the process of giving our small mudroom a makeover, so today I’m sharing our barn beam floating bench made from an old reclaimed piece of wood.
I like barn beams. A lot. So when my husband told me about a local antique wood dealer, I immediately made the trek to look around. This place was amazing… and full of farm life history. There were stacks upon stacks of wood beams that came directly from old barns in the mid west. I was in awe. Knowing that I wanted to make one of those barn beams into a floating bench, I looked for one that was just the right thickness with the right amount of character. What I found didn’t disappoint! Once I got it home, my husband began planning on how we were going to make it appear “floating”. Because the beam is really heavy, Anthony decided to weld a piece of 1/4″ steel to make the platform. He’s a welder by trade, but the platform could easily be made with wood as well. Here’s what he made:
Because we have an outlet and a central vacuum receptacle beneath the bench, he notched around them…
Then, we held it up to the wall and made sure it was level…
And I marked all the platform holes with a pencil. With the holes marked we took it down and pre drilled the marks where our wall studs were located.
On the other holes we used plastic anchors for extra support…
Then we anchored it to the wall with several screws…
With the platform in place, we started on the barn beam…
We marked and measured it to fit our wall, which is 3 foot long, then Anthony used his saw to cut it…
Because our saw wasn’t as large as the piece of wood, we flipped the wood over and finished cutting it…
The barn board was also a bit uneven on the back side, so in order to make it sit flush against the wall, we trimmed the back to make it straight…
And since the blade didn’t cut all the way to the top of the board, Anthony finished cutting it with his saw. We just flipped the board over, marked a straight line and he started cutting…
We ended up with a very nice cut:
From there we lightly sanded the top and side of the bench to make them smooth for sitting…
Once the board was how we wanted it, we began attaching it to the metal platform from the bottom…
We used wood shims to make sure it was level, then screwed it in place…
With the beam in place, I used natural hemp oil to restore the wood…
I used a brush and gave the entire top and sides a nice even coat. The wood quickly absorbed the oil and I gave it another light coat. I’m absolutely thrilled with how well the hemp oil worked. Because I wanted to keep the wood as original as possible, I didn’t want to stain it and lose all the cracks and bug trails that had been added over the years. I am 100% completely in love with the way it’s turned out…. Because our mudroom is so small, I really wanted to make a custom bench rather than buy one. I wanted to have ample storage space underneath the bench for boots, hats, scarves, etc. And because we have the central vac outlet on the wall, we couldn’t have any type of furniture that would block it.
Plus, I really wanted the bench to look like it was floating…
And even though you can see a little bit of the metal platform, I couldn’t be happier. It ties in nicely with the wood, the white and everything else in our home. It’s also only 12″ deep, which is great because it doesn’t get in our walk path.
And don’t even get me started on those bug trails and natural cracks and crevices…
This beam has history and I didn’t want to lose any of it during the process…
Now, we just need to add a bit of our history in there too…
Until next time… You can find me on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter! And be sure to stop by The Wood Grain Cottage to say hi!
