ABOUT THE BENCH
Two woodworkers,
one shared library.
The Bench is a paid library and small community for furniture makers and hand-tool woodworkers. Sam and Ruth are co-founders. The library went paid in February 2021 after two years of free posts; about 380 members in the community today.
Why paid
For a long time the library was free, ad-supported nowhere — we paid for the hosting out of furniture commissions and the writing happened around the work. That stopped scaling around 2021. The choice was to drop the writing (which we didn’t want), monetize with sponsored posts (which we wouldn’t do), or charge readers directly. We went with the third option. The money pays for time to write, time to photograph, and the monthly office hours Sam runs.
How the membership works
- Free signup gets you the weekly preview, sample posts, and notification when new free work goes up
- Member ($12/mo) gets the full library, including all archived members-only lessons and project plans
- Founder ($24/mo) adds live monthly office hours, queue priority on the critique submissions, and access to the workshop wishlist (we send a small thank-you tool from the wishlist to anyone who’s been a Founder for a year)
The co-founders
CO-FOUNDER · PERIOD FURNITURE
Sam Lindblom
Trained with the period-furniture conservator at the Lyon Museum from 2010 to 2014. Builds Federal-period and Shaker-influenced furniture professionally; teaches privately on the side. Wrote the original library before there was any paid tier and still writes most of the lessons.
CO-FOUNDER · DESIGN & DRAWING
Ruth Eitemiller
Industrial-design background; trained at RISD; runs the drawing instruction for The Bench and most of the project plans. Co-owns the workshop with Sam. Runs the monthly Founder office hours.