This was supposed to be a quick and easy bench for my neighbor. He owns a landscaping company and does me a lot of favors with helping out in the yard and doing consultations on what we want to do in the future. I figured I'd make them a bench his wife has been asking for.

I grabbed the wood (Cherry) out of my lumber supplier's "discount" pile, but I made sure to get the ones with the least amount of sapwood. All things considered, it was a great deal. Despite my frustrations (I'll explain in a sec) it's decent wood for projects like this that end up being gifts. It was the first time I've worked with pre-milled lumber, and honestly I didn't like it. I had little room to work with when it came to jointing and planing any cup or twist out, which was really frustrating.