The way to make a bench

We've still got some big chunks of boards that we set aside for indoor parts of the house. I started by gluing two 12 inch wide ones together:

The next day, the clamps come off and a bunch of hand planing gets done to take off the 3 years of aging and rough saw cut surface:

and then some very difficult cutting and shaping to get them to fit onto the organic earthen bench. I get now why they say to build the bench around the wood, not the other way.

These bench tops will get doors cut into them so that things can be stored inside the bench.