This isn’t a crappy little painted-pine toy bench like you see at the big boxes. Leave it to Lee Valley to recommend a kids’ bench that you’d be proud to use as an adult. They claim it’s “solidly built with mortise-and-tenon joints, lag bolt construction, and a 1″ thick top made of solid birch.” And its beauty is more than wood deep: You get two vises, too, (perfect for woodworking) and a little particleboard shelf for storage.
Best of all, when your kids outgrow it, you can install the longer trestle leg sections (that come with it) and raise it from a kid-friendly 25-1/2″ height to 33-3/4″ — just the thing for sliding out to hold something in place while you sand or glue. Think of it as a really fancy Workmate. From Sweden. (With love.)
It’s currently $300, which seems spendy compared to toy benches but doesn’t sound bad at all for something this usable. Hell, I’d have killed for one of these as a kid. The only trick will be convincing the kids that it’s not a paint stand.
Sjobergs Compact Workbench [Lee Valley]
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6 Responses to No, It’s Not Ikea: A Sweet Kids’ Bench
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Looks nice. A little spendy, but it does have two vises. I could see using this as an assembly bench.
Once again, look t HF. Their bench has only one vise though. It has 4 drawers for your woodcrafting tools and is regularly on sale for just over $100.
I landed one a long time back and use it more than I thought I would. Looking closely at the legs on mine, it would be a simple task to convert the existing legs into something that could be adjusted up and down. Hmmm. Are my arms long enough to use two vises at the same time?
I think I could built one of these for about a third what they’re asking… and might do when my offspring is ready. Love the idea.
That is a sweet looking bench, but I found a knock-off Workmate style work bench works pretty well for my daughter. Price $20.
Given the price of furniture though, I think it would look good as an end table next to my couch for holding my beer. Let’s see the dog knock the beer out of the end vise.
Lee Valley rocks. I’ve never been sorry about having bought something from them and they are blazingly fast at getting orders out the door. Top quality. (No, I don’t own stock in the company. In this day and age I appreciate quality where ever I find it, which isn’t often. Cheap Chinese crap and all that.) sd
I was just at my local Woodcraft store and I saw that they carried Sjobergs workbenches. They had the compact bench for sale at $199. I can’t tell if it’s identical to the one Lee Valley is selling, but it looks the same to me. Owner told me that it would be on sale over the holiday weekend, 15% off. I played with it a little. Not as solid as you would expect, but a heck of a lot better than the Black and Decker Workmate I’ve had my son use. I think I’ll buy one for him.