I was looking for a simple, cheap stool for my fledgling workshop, but every plan I found was unnecessarily complicated, with threaded rods for height adjustment, triple braced legs and so on. I found some simple stools on a classifieds site for $10 each (you know, the generic kind), so I figured unless I could make one for less than $10 there was no point in making one at all.

After some searching I came across this and decided to replicate it. All you need is two 8ft 2×4’s and some wood screws (which comes out to about $6 here, maybe $6.50 if you include the price of the screws). I tried a couple of different angle cuts on a piece of scrap and decided that 4° looked closest. I did the 2 that will be the seat like so /—\ and the legs like so /——/. You don’t need to angle cut the center seat piece or the supports. This ended up being about 28″ tall and the seat is 12″ wide x 10.5″ deep.

Mine doesn’t look quite as nice as his, but I knocked this together in a couple hours without much forethought. If I was doing it for somewhere other than my workshop or to sell I’d get nicer wood, countersink the screw holes, finish it, and all that jazz. For a cheap workshop stool though, this will do nicely.

The photo up top is before sanding (and it was missing a few screws that I forgot so the legs are leaning in a bit more), to the right is after sanding. I just gave it a quick go over with 80 grit on the orbital sander and rounded the edges on the top. I might end up staining it at some point if I get bored, I think it could look pretty decent with some stain and tung oil.

Before I decided to start this blog I took some pictures during the process of building my workbench, so I thought it would make sense to put them up here with a quick write up of the build process.

There’s a lip in my garage that’s about 2″ tall and 28″ deep, all along the back wall, which is 18 and a bit feet long, so I decided to fill it with workbenches. This meant that if I made 3 workbenches that were each 6ft long I would fill that wall up and have about 5″ of storage space at the end for brooms and such things. I found some plans here that I liked, so I kept the same height (33 ¾”) but made mine 6ft wide and 28″ deep. I had to buy a few more 2×4’s than the plans mention, but these are perfect for my work space.

The plans I linked to are also for 2 workbenches, for which they completely use 2 sheets of plywood. Since I was making mine bigger I couldn’t be as efficient, but I didn’t feel like buying another piece just for the shelf, so I managed to make the bottom shelf out of the off-cuts from the top. It ended up being 3 pieces instead of 1, so it doesn’t look great (hence why there are no pictures) but I’m never going to see it without stuff on it, so it doesn’t really matter.

The only other thing I did differently from the plans was that I attached the top with pocket holes. The plans called for just screwing in from the top, but I wanted a nice uniform surface so I decided pocket holes from underneath were the way to go. Unfortunately the 2×4 wood was a bit too soft and I was a bit too aggressive so the screws went too far and poked through the plywood top. Luckily my grandparents gave me a dremel kit for Christmas several years ago, so I used that with an aluminium oxide bit to grind down the sharp bits.

As you can see the main features are a workbench and a stool. The workbench is based off these plans and modified to fit my space. You can find more info on the stool coming soon.

In the works right now are a dining table, 2 benches (for the dining table), and a few more things. Stay tuned to see more!