Sunday rough log bench

Here's my very rough draft on my first log bench. It's a small one and I used this as practice for the monster 8 foot long bench I'll be making for our kitchen. Not sure if I like the mortise and tenon legs though. I have another idea using a log split lengthwise for the legs. I'll finish this and then experiment on another one using the idea.Ben and Oliver helped me for a solid 4 hours straight this afternoon, they are the best company. I fired up the chainsaw again and roughed out the next bench- basically cutting a log length wise in to even 3rds. So I have a piece of rough (basically) 4 X 8 from the middle piece, and then 2 pieces that were the outer, round log. They will be the legs and the middle section will be the bench seat. My idea is fairly simple but I couldn't find any other bench (or piece of furniture) that used a similar join. It's quite possible that the reason no else has used it is that it won't work. In another life, when I was working for a contractor in the Virgin Islands, I watched a carpenter make a custom staircase out of mahogany (we were tiling the floors at the same time) and he didn't use any nails... he pinned everything together. I've always thought that was the coolest thing I ever saw, so I want to try it on this next bench. I'll make the pins out of cedar so they will be a darker wood.

I still have to cut the legs to level the bench. I think it's going to be tricky.

Liv not too sure about the bench.

Up close on an (almost) finished leg.