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I was commissioned to make another outdoor Lutyens bench in balau, but this time it was to be painted white. I really battled this time around because I had misplaced the plans that were given to me on the first one I made. With the first one I made I was given the plans from the client who had ordered them online. There were not PDF plans but rather printed on A1 paper and posted to him.

Each curved piece was drawn on the plans in real size and needed to be cut out and pasted to a piece of softwood, then cut and shaped to make a template. That is then transposed to the work piece and cut leaving a 5mm or so gap on the edge and then flush trimmed using a flush trim router bit to arrive at a perfectly curved piece. They can then be re-produced quite easily and quickly.

Needless to say I lost my plans and my templates. Eventually I ordered them myself at huge cost only to find my plans when I cleaned my office out. So we started to cut all our shaped pieces. I then modified the plans slightly to make use of standard balau pieces that we use in our decking. I always have off cuts that are too small to use in decking but long enough to use in bench making, so it saves a lot of money which I can pass on to my clients in reduced selling prices. However changing the size of the pieces to make use of standard decking pieces results in some pieces changing length slightly. So now we couldn’t cut to the plans we had to work out how long various pieces needed to be to accommodate the change in thicknesses and widths of the stock we were using.

So it was a painfully slow process, but we eventually got there with our slightly modified design of our Lutyens Bench. We then quickly drew the Lutyens Bench, measured each piece and kept a note of it so that next time we know how long each piece is and we can then pre-cut all our pieces, mark them, domino or dowel them and glue the whole thing up a day or two.

The Lutyens Bench has a very distinctive design and look. It was originally designed and first built prior to 1913 by the Edwardian architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (the Dutch name is pronounced “Lut-chins”).

It has since become very popular and one can find various different styles with small changes. The back rest, together with eth arm rests, however remains pretty much original as that is what defines its unique design.

For a free no obligation quote on the Lutyens Bench or any other garden furniture, wooden decking or outdoor timber construction please feel free to contact us on 082 496 5444 or use the contact us form below.