I’ve only just remembered to post this – well actually talking to someone earlier today reminded me that I hadn’t done it when I should have!

I had a call from someone who’d visited the garden in July asking if I’d like to repair a couple of benches.  “send me a photo and I’ll have a look” I said.

Well here they are; in a very sorry state.

The six footer

The five footer

I drew a deep breath and agreed to get some costs together.  To cut a long story short David agreed to refurbishing the timbers in oak and the metal work in white.  So off I went to collect them.  The larger one only just fitted in the trailer, but soon they were home and the work began.

Getting the timbers off was easy as they had started to rot, but there’s a lot of bolts to grind off:  66 on the bigger one and 45 on the other.

I then wire brushed the numerous layers of paint and rust on each of the five support legs and arms getting back as far as possible to bare metal.  For this job I had to fire up the forge to make a couple of feet, which had rotted away.

Fortunately we had a nice dry spell and I was able to paint the metalwork outside and leave it to dry in the sun – quite what the neighbours thought I can’t guess!

painted metalwork on the clothes rail!

Timber again came from Witney Sawmills, which I then planed to width and thickness for each bench.

Putting it all back together was a bit of a jigsaw, and again a lot of nuts and bolts some of which were really difficult to get at,  but eventually here’s the result.

The smaller one

and..

the big one.

Altogether a highly satisfying job and one which drew the following from the client “I was absolutely delighted with the outcome.  They look so elegant.  Thank you!”