I was just looking at Rich's bench which we all loved. Beautiful application. Here's a bench ( one of a pair ) I did for some clients last year. They have a beach house and needed a shoe rack also. I had no source for the wood but knew I wanted something organic. After much internet searching, I ended up finding someone by my upstate studio. The wood is simply a pine slab. I think it worked out well.

This is a bench I recently completed. All forged from mild steel, heavily upset and drawn with all traditional joinery. No glue gun on this, kids. Due to the nature of the piece of Saman wood, the bench had to be assembled around and through the finished plank of wood.