Recycled church pew

[Jasahan]

K, so I'm posting some pictures of something I made out of church pews. I work in a woodshop for a ministry that makes stuff out of pallets. But a while back we got approached with the idea of making a conference table out of pews for another non-proft. So we did. Then a church a few blocks from us told us they had a few pews they needed to get rid of. So we said we'd take them. We used them for my wedding in the park across the street from our house. Then my wife wanted me to make something out of them. So I made her a storage bench (is there a one-word name for those?). Here are two pics:

Pretty basic construction. I had to cut down the back and sides. The back was plywood, but the seat was solid. It was all oak. The back just slid back into the grooves that were already there. The seat had to be short enough to life up and down. The front of the storage area is another pew seat. The back and bottom of the storage area is some extra plywood we had at the shop. I've never built a storage compartment, so I might not have done the best construction there. Basically put braces on each end for the seat, front, back, and bottom. Then used a ton of finishing nails (which I hate, because I don't have a nailer). I used polyurethane on the inside of the storage compartment so it would be washable and it wouldn't stain the linens. The outside, I just scrubbed down with Murphy's oil soap and just polished it with generic spray furniture polish. Wife loved it.

It was also my first time mortising hinges. The hinges were some heavy door hinges that we had laying around. I didn't actually pay for anything for this (unless you want to count screws, nails, and glue). Anyway, I think I did okay on the hinge mortises. Mortising the plywood back was a little tricky.

If you want to see what else we've made out of pews, you can go here: http://sunministries.../more-pews.html

thanks.