7 - the bench

post by steph

it was quite the undertaking...

My team was made up of Oren, Zac and myself. As it had been my passion that we deliver the YP a funky cool new wooden bench, I took lead as focaliser. Oren and Zac were to be my man power :D

The original idea was to find some interesting "piece," made of wood or somthing else needing recycling, and then to create a unique bench around that center piece. The idea was tossed around that it would be paintable, to further the funky effect.

A day or two before our work day, Zac and I took a trip up to the wood piles to look around and have a chat with Jason. We asked what was available, and were happy to find out that mostly "everything to the left" was free to use...

Excited, but with no real plan in mind, Oren, Zac and I set off that Friday morning to the wood pile. Large hunks of tree trunk began to look appealing as we dreamt up rough bench designs; still, the funky appeal was missing. Not too far into the hunt, we found two old doors hiding out in the back of the workyard. One was rotting pretty badly, but the other looked just right to be a children's climbing/sitting place.

Oren envisioned the pieces we would need to set it up, and all three of us set to work digging them out. The first plan was to have three very tall posts along the back edge of the bench, which would be placed in holes in the ground for permanent placement. Three smaller posts along the front would provide balance. At this stage, we thought it a good idea to give the bench a back as well...

Craig soon enough came round with his tractor, and we all piled in. Had a real fun ride, and brought back more than enough wood to the YP building.

After a good long consultation session amongst ourselves and with Craig, our team determined it best to simply mount the door on six sturdy logs that would be dug into the ground. We had a permanent design for a permanent door-bench.

Next was prepping the door, digging the holes, and cutting the logs to size. The system we decided on to make sure the bench was even in the end was somewhat haphazard, but seemed to work at the time being.

I sanded the door's old paint chips down, while Oren and Zac rotated in cutting logs and digging holes. (I did dig a few holes too.) The idea was to determine the placement of the posts, mark that on the ground, and dig similar-depth holes in the appropriate spots.

This went well until it was time to fill in dirt around the logs in their holes. It seemed that the holes had shifted in unplanned directions, during the digging process. We had six very awkward looking logs sticking out at random from the ground, and we hadn't even touched the issue of making the door sit level on top of them.

After much debate, we decided it would be best to place the logs and fill in the holes two at a time, to make sure they were all standing at about the same height off the ground. This seemed to go well for awhile, until the door was placed on top... we couldn't figure out how to put the last two logs in the ground so that all six would be flush. (you had to be there to visually understand this... trust that it was mad frustrating!!)

Meanwhile, I realized the doorknob needed to come off of the door; it wasn't safe to have on a bench that kids would be fooling around on. The rusted hardware finally gave way, but even with all the screws out, the doorknob was still dangling from the door. I went begging to the most able man I know here... and Craig had the answer! He took a big metal... tool/thing... and with one WACK, knocked the sucker right off. YAYY!!

So the door was ready, four out of six of the logs were ready. Then a few group members came to our aid. We ended up sticking small bits of wood between the last two logs and the door to fill the gap. Then multiple group members helped with the nailing of the door to the logs (three nails to each log, please!), and the bench was complete!

The day was long, frustrating at times, energy intensive, yet sooo satisfying by the time I had a second to look around at what else had been going on in the yard. I thought we all worked very well together, and played off each other's strengths beautifully. In the end, the bench is more practical than funky, storing wood underneath it, and serving as a shelf for the kids to stand on while they paint on the high-up graffitti surfaces behind it.

I think my team was happy with the end product, and excited to have contributed to something that the YP will benefit from for years to come!



see pictures from the day here.