Garden Bench — White Oak

A solid white oak garden bench built for decades of outdoor use. It has simple, clean lines and mortise-and-tenon joinery, with no screws visible on the seating surface. The bench is 48 inches long and 18 inches deep, with an 18-inch seat height, and it seats two adults comfortably.

White oak's tyloses-plugged pores resist moisture penetration more effectively than open-pored species, and the heartwood's high tannin content gives it natural resistance to the fungi that cause rot. Left unfinished, the bench weathers to silver-gray without any maintenance. That color change is cosmetic, and gray white oak is still structurally sound.