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Home » Furniture Projects

DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches

Published: Jan 10, 2017 · Modified: Jan 6, 2025 by Morgan · As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. This site contains affiliate links. ·

After building a knock off West Elm table, we also made knock off reclaimed wood benches to go along with it. Here's the tutorial!

We built a DIY knock off faux reclaimed wood table modeled after the Emmerson table from West Elm. Well what good is a table if you don't have anywhere to sit?

That's why we also made DIY knock off faux reclaimed wood benches to model off their waterfall benches!

I'll admit- I had a lot more problems building these benches than I did with the table, but it shouldn't have been that way. I just kept running out of wood for some reason. Even though I did the math, I ended up with issues.

DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted

Click here to pin this project to your pinterest board!

DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches

I built the bench using the same system as the table. I started with the bench top using two 63" 2x4s and five 7" 2x4s. Using a Kreg jig, I created the rectangular top with the 7" pieces in between starting on the edges and putting the three others evenly spaced.

DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted

I made the legs in a box frame with 14" pieces on the top and bottom with 13.75" pieces going up. I secured them with deck screws and then put them on the ends of the bench top.

DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted

The best tip I have for attaching something like this is to angle your screws in opposite directions and drive them in at angles instead of driving them straight down.

DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted
DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted

With the frame built, it was time to add the 1x4 paneling. The top of the frame was four 1x4s across, all cut at different lengths in order to give it the look of various pieces of wood.

Each piece of wood was stained in one of four colors in alternating spots. The pieces on the ends had a 45 degree mitered cut to align with the pieces that would be coming up the side.

DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted

After attaching the top, we added the pieces to the outside to create a waterfall look. This was the main difference between the benches and the table. The waterfall look gives the benches a look of a continuous piece of wood going down the side.

After the outside end pieces were on, we added straight cut pieces to the inside of the leg frame to fill it in.

Finally came the outside sides. We cut pieces to the same lengths as the top pieces so that they would look like a 4x4 piece of wood coming down. We gave these a beveled 45 degree cut to angle with the legs coming up the sides.

DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted
DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted

The final four pieces of wood were 1x2 pieces of pine that covered the last bit of a corner and made seamless boxes for the legs.

In the end, the entire thing looks beautiful. The waterfall sides look so good and refined.

DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted
DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted

Click here to pin this project to your pinterest board!

The wood for these benches cost about $200. This is pretty good compared to the fact that each bench from West Elm cost between $500-600 depending on which size you got.

So yeah, between the table and benches, we spent around $500. Seems like a lot until you compare the fact that the table and benches we modeled them after would have cost us approximately $2,300.

If you like this project you might also like:

  • Live edge slab coffee table
  • Driftwood coffee table
  • Pipe leg bench
DIY Knock Off Faux Reclaimed Wood Emmerson West Elm Benches - Charleston Crafted
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Morgan

Hello, I'm Morgan, half of the creative force behind CharlestonCrafted.com! With a passion for DIY that dates back to 2012, I've transformed three homes and now I'm dedicated to helping others craft their dream spaces. Let's turn your house into a home together!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lauren says

    November 28, 2021 at 10:18 pm

    Would you make another one of those West Elm Emmerson knock offs for a local gal? I'll pay you for your time + materials.

    • Sean says

      November 29, 2021 at 11:13 am

      Hey Lauren - I appreciate the ask, but right now we unfortunately don't have the capacity to build for others. Maybe once our kids are in school! Happy Holidays!

Trackbacks

  1. 30 Easy DIY Bench Ideas You Can Build Today! - Anika's DIY Life says:
    March 21, 2019 at 1:48 pm

    […] West Elm knock off bench by Charleston Crafted […]

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