Here is the original blog post over at Lumberjocks.com
My shoe bench is going to be the cubby style, flat on the top to sit, little cubbies all in a row to organize shoes.
First things first it has to fit where I want it. I want to put the bench behind the entry door up against the wall, mostly where the shoes are piled now.
Take some measurements to find the maximum dimensions that will fit.
Around a foot deep and 60 – 62 inches long. How high do I want the seat. I want it to be comfortable, time to measure a few of my standard sitting spots where I put on my shoes and socks. Sitting on the edge of the bed, that’s where I put on my socks. It works, mostly cause that’s where my socks are, but it is really too high to be comfortable for a bench.
I have a little stool I keep near the door I sometime sit on to put on my boots. It is really too short to be comfortable, but it’s handy.
Probably the most comfortable height to put on and off my shoes is when I drag over a dining room chair. When my feet hurt or at the end of a long day a chair is most comfortable.
Let’s see, my dining room chairs are about 17 inches or so.
So it looks like I need the envelope of the bench to be around 17 inches high, about 12 inches deep, and between 60 and 62 inches long.
There is another thread here on Lumberjocks asking the question, do you use plans or not. Me, I always use plans, at least for anything more complex than a simple box, or cutting board, or something I’ve made a bunch of times. For something new, something relatively complex, I make a set of plans. And my favorite tool for making up a set of plans is Sketchup. Using Sketchup allows me to build the item digitally, work through the joinery, look at the design from all sides, create a cut list, and walk through the cut and assembly flow, all before I set foot in the shop.
Here’s my final design, saved in Sketchup 8. I measured a pair of shoes to get a feel for how large the cubbies need to be, bigger than 6 inches and less than 9 inches wide, 6 inches high, and however deep the bench is, in this case a foot.
And a cut list with dimensions. Not really a cut list, more of an unfolded layout, a cut picture??
