DIY Skinny Dowel Bench

Last week I took my followers on Instagram along on the ride of making a DIY skinny dowel bench. I’ve been seeing them all over the internet and seeing as us Canadians can’t find a lot of these trends in store, I decided to make it.

Now, this blog will be a bit different, I will tell you the specifics, but if you want to see a play-by-play, please head to my Instagram and click on the highlight called “Skinny Bench” that will show you how we made this skinny dowel bench.

I told my followers I would be making two versions; the skinny dowel bench and a bench made out of 2×2’s for legs.

The second bench will be a bit more tricky, so I wanted to build the dowel bench for those of you who can’t build.

Now let me say this bench is for decorative use only. You can put weight on it, but I wouldn’t every day. I did sit on it, but again, since it’s made out of 1 1/2″ dowels for legs, it isn’t super sturdy.

We purchased a 2″ x 8″ x 6′ pine board from the hardware store. It was 11 dollars. We already had the dowels on hand. 1 1/2″ dowel is 1.50/foot. If I was to actually go and buy dowel though, I would go with 2″

We then took a 1 1/2″ bit and drilled round holes into the underside of our pine board. We drilled them on an angle as we will cut the dowels on a 45 degree angle so they will sit angled, as seen in photo.

Once all four holes were drilled, we filled the holes with silicone and knocked the dowels into the holes ( it will be a tight fit, but this is what you want )

**Tap the below photos to shop our room**

We left it over night to dry and came back in the morning to beat up the bench and stain it.

If you’re not into the distressed and beat up look, this bench might not be for you. They’re supposed to look ugly and like you pulled them out of a crap pile ( haha )

I used my “Beachwood” mix which consists of grey and early American. You can find the blog I wrote back in 2016, here. Keep in mind, they no longer sell Minwax stains, so if you head to my highlight on Instagram, mentioned above, you can find the stains I used

Next version will be a lot more complex, but this one is for anyone who cannot DIY or build!

If you have any questions on how we build this DIY Skinny Dowel Bench, please let me know in the comments and if you love it, I’d love if you shared!

Keep your eyes peeled as I’ll be sharing the other version in the next week!