Collapsible Leg Bench

We needed a bench to make dressing in our closet. Since the space is limited it needed to be as compact as possible. I decided to make a bench with legs that folded into the top apron. The bench is made of scrap birch plywood and edge banded with sweet gum. I used a gray polyurethane stain followed by 2 coats of polyurethane spar varnish to finish it.

The first challenge was figuring out how to make the legs nest in the apron. This was done by putting an extra piece of wood in one end for the hinges to connect to. This lowered one leg by the thickness of the piece added. The other leg hinges connected directly to the bench top. The lowered leg was shorter than the other end by be the thickness of the insert.

The second challenge was how to keep the legs for folding up when the bench was in use. That was accomplished by making what I call a keyhole stretcher.  The stretcher is 1-1/2” inches wide by 3/4” thick except for the ends. The ends have been cut down to a thickness of 5/8”.  These dimensions allow the stretcher to be inserted through the larger section of the keyhole from either end. The shoulders are located at a distance that keeps the legs pushed against the inside of the apron on both ends. Since the smaller part of the keyhole is on the lower part of it gravity keeps the stretcher in position while the bench is in use or is being moved about.

The only limitation I ran into was the length of the bench top dictated how tall the legs could be. As I mentioned at the beginning I wanted something compact. I would have preferred a bench that was 3″ to 4” shorter in length than this one but that shorter length would only allow legs that were a good deal shorter that a comfortable height. All in all I’m happy with the end result and look forward to using it for a long time.