Katie and I are redoing our mudroom by putting in tile and putting in some lockers for us and our 4 daughters. It is a small room at 9X13 feet, but in one corner we would like to put in a stump bench so that the girls can have a place to sit when they take off their sneakers or boots. I know this style is not for everyone, but we have a timber framed style house so we think it fits. The thing is, I am not sure what to use for a stump species. I got a bulldozer so any of the following is possible. I do have Ash and since it will soon be extinct practically I would go with that but Ash and Pine drive a tap root halfway to hades and I avoid those two stumps like the plague. Spruce Fir Eastern hemlock Larch Hackmatack Basswood Beech Maple Ironwood White Birch Yellow Birch There are more, but those would be the best since I have the most to chose from.
Well as long as it's solid, probably the bigger the stump, the cooler stuff you going to find. I'd favor the hardwoods like maple, ash, or beech. If I was going to try to make one from a stump I'd probably try to pick one that was about the right size already.
The hemlock would be interesting. Really dense for a softwood and has some really cool color to it....
I would pick fir or eastern hemlock. I just like the colors and how both of those age. You mentioned your home being timberframed of sorts the stump bench sounds really neat. Good luck on the project.
I posted pictures of our house on other replies on here, but could have posted a picture here too I suppose. We really try and do as much as we can for ourselves. Those beams for instance, they look hand-hewn because they are! Cut them myself with an axe, and Katie even helped me heft them into place when she was 7 months pregnant! The farm table; black cherry, that too came off the farm and sawn from the family saw mill, and even the slate in the foyer, that came from our back pasture and split the slate ourselves. Even the grout was made from gravel from our gravel pit. The wide pine flooring (though not sanded yet) came off our farm and sawn here, even the concrete countertops. We really do as much for ourselves as we can, which is another way of saying we are CHEAP!
wow! very cool, LodgedTree! Thanks for the pics. That table is huge, I can see Thanksgiving dinner on there for sure Cant wait to see the stump bench pics! Not cheap, sir. Resourceful !!! .
Black walnut. You could probably cut a maple tree about waist high...then come back in a year and get some cool spalting. Spalted maple is my favorite.
I love spalted wood myself, but I ended up getting a maple. Really it was only because I found a nice tree that branched really close to the ground. My plan now is to get this stump home, get the dirt out of it and finally cut to height. Ultimately a bench seat will span both truncated trunks. Here is the stump pushed out of the ground. A bit hard because it was interlocked with a hemlock right beside it. Lets just say in the next east Wind, that hemlock is headed for the ground. Of course if anyone has been reading the chainsaw section they know mid way through pushing the stump out, my saw fell off its perch on the dozer and I backed over the saw. That saw is toast! This is getting to be an expensive DIY project!
I got a few more pictures of that stump and got it moved down to my house. Good ole Wallenstein (my personified log trailer) let me down and refused to pick it up, but good ole John (my personified bulldozer) had no problem picking up literally where Wallenstein left off. I just chained the stump and root ball to the blade and heisted it that way and carried it home. Granted about 90% of it is going to be cut off when I am done, but I got to get the roots cleaned off first and then start hacking.
