Custom Deck Bench and Railing

[Tim E Daniels]

I don't have a deck, but if I did, I would love to have deck benches and railings.  There are several brackets to do this easily, but they get pretty expensive.  I started looking for inspiration and saw this picture on another site.

It looked very much like a knock down sawhorse.  So I got designing.

What I came up with uses 1 2x6x8 or 2x4x8 (as shown) for each "sawhorse" they mount upside down sitting on the deck joist.  They have a 13 degree recline,  17" seating height, and 36" railing height.  They can be planked with 2x4s or 2x6s (as shown).  All of the planks are attached from the rear with pocket holes.  Notch out the bottom 3/4" on each side for mounting over a single joist.  The cross braces would be bolted on.  Add the bottom brace after you add your decking.  The handrail and the rail under the seat I took 13 degrees of wood off the edge to make sure they can be attached to the adjoining rails.

Hopefully someone can make use of these.

[Jordan Christensen]

Hello Everyone,

I'm brand new here and have just begun, in the last year, to DIY. I used all the helpful info here, plus the use of sketchup, to make theses bench railings for my back porch/deck.

This was the first time using sketchup, but here it is anyway...

Here is the finished project...as you can see I did not do the entire project with pocket holes(I have the Kreg Mini...That would have taken me way too long) but i did use it on several of the bottom braces.

As you can see my "deck" is small so I needed to find a bench solution that took up little deck space...This worked perfectly for that. I made a couple modifications/variations but overall i took the design from Tim(above),  and did my best to adapt it to my deck. 

Thanks for the Ideas, Tim