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What started as a quick project to provide a work space and storage… Turned into a very efficient and easy to build utility bench.

The design goals were simple – create a bench using minimal materials that was sturdy.  Our new garage space needed a place to “do stuff”.    It was a good time to fire up Sketchup – I had not designed anything in a while and I was a little rusty.

Download plans here: Sheri’s Bench

Materials needed:

• 2 – 4’x8′ Sheets of plywood
  • Home Depot plywood
• 3 – 2×4’s
• 2″ Construction screws
• Construction adhesive.

Note: You really only need 1 1/2 sheets of plywood for the bench as you will see.

Here are a majority of the components – If you have a table saw and a chop saw – you can cut all of this in about 20-30 minutes.

Cutting widest to narrowest is the best – 21″, 19 1/2″, 6″, ….  On the plywood sheets.  The only thing to be aware of is the last two 3″ wide strips have a 18″ x 4″ piece at the top.  If you cut the 18″ length off first, you can get all of the pieces out of this one sheet.  Home Depot in my area just started selling a very affordable and good quality plywood for these benches.  Really nice for this project.  See materials list above.

The second sheet has just the two shelves – and is less than half of the overall sheet of plywood.  If you make a second bench – you only need one more sheet of plywood!

Once all of the “long” pieces are sliced out at the tablesaw… a chop saw station with a stop block will make quick work of cutting all of the parts to length.

I used pressure treated 2×4’s for the legs because the garage floor this bench will be on has gotten wet a few times.  When cutting the legs – you should be able to get them all 32″.  Depending on the 2×4’s, they may end up at 31 7/8″ due to the width of the blade on your saw.   As long as all six are the same length – you will be good.

You should end up with a stack of components – your own bench kit!