Benches.

That's right, we made benches for 90 people to sit on. We're crazy!

The biggest time waster with these, was:

• deciding to do them
• waiting on the timber

Ok, so we ordered 1800mm lengths of treated pine for the top of the benches. We also ordered sleepers to make the legs. We got a good price because one of my uncles owns Pine Timber Products. Shout out to you, Uncle John!

I don't have too many photos of this process, I was inside ironing and sewing like a housewife! I'm probably too delicate to get my hands rough anyway, so just as well I had another project to work on ;)

First, we started by cutting the sleepers into legs. Mum, Dad and Zac did this with one of Mum's electric saws. I think this one was a mother's day gift, or a birthday present? My mum is so handy!

Next, the boys drilled pilot holes on the sleepers legs. This is so that when we screwed the tops to the legs it would be easier to get them in the right place.

What happened next is something I don't have pictures of - sorry! Using a metal template that was made by our handyman-friend Rod, we drilled more pilot holes. This time into the top 'seat' part of the benches. Four holes, two in each end.. exactly where the legs would go, exactly the same width apart as the pilot holes on the legs.

Then Aaron and Dad used a 'spade' drill bit to make a wide hole on top of the pilot hole (you can see what I mean a couple of photos down). This meant that when we started screwing in the screws, they would sit flush with the bench, not above. No one likes sitting on a lumpy bench!

The only photo I have was of the aftermath of the spade bit:

What happened next was simple, but required some grunt. We assembled the legs and seat to create a bench. Dad, Aaron, Zac and even my 8 year old cousin Katie helped out with this. We put a washer in the hollowed out space on the seat, pushed in a screw as far as it would go and used a socket to screw it the rest of the way down. It took a while!

Voila! Bench seats!

26 benches made! Go team O'Neil!