We made a few things out of some nice cedar for the yard recently: a couple of compost bins, a raised planting bed, and a potting bench for Helen. I got all of the wood from Issaquah Cedar and Lumber and I’m really happy with it. They were very helpful. I ended up getting some 13′ rough cut 5″x5″ yellow cedar beams to make the planting bed. For the rest, I got 4″ or 6″ wide rough fence boards, all 4′ long.The compost bins are 4 feet square and 3 feet high, with the slats separated a bit to let air in. The front slats are removable to get material in and out more easily, and allow it to be turned. We put them out of the way near the fork in the road at the end of the driveway. We’ll see how they work out!
The planting bed is 9′ x 4′ x 15″ deep. The beams are on a thin bed of gravel, and we put about 3″ or so of gravel in the bottom for better drainage, then filled the rest with some nice topsoil. This took longer to build than I thought… leveling the site took some work, then drilling the beams and driving rebar through them and into the ground was entertaining when I ran into some rocks. It all worked out okay in the end, though.
For the potting bench we dried the fence boards then ran them through the planer and picked the nicest ones. The wood was for the most part fantastic: fairly clear, with a wide variety of grain patterns and color. We machined the boards we liked square and built the bench out of them plus a few cedar 2×4’s. We tested one so-called “clear” finish on a scrap board and didn’t like it, so I ended up using two coats of Helmsman Spar Urethane clear satin. It looks and feels gorgeous, and although finishing took way longer than actually building it, it was well worth it in the end.
