In a Nutshell:

A superb, Mission-style bench, proudly made in the USA and offered in a range of color options, or unfinished if you prefer. The CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Garden Bench is recommended for anyone. A bit more expensive than some options, but this bench is superb.

Value for the Money
Comfort
Brand Reliability*
Aesthetic Flexibility**

Overall Rating

4.4/5
* Brand Reliability is a measure of the strength and longevity of the brand, which by extension, is a measure of the level of support you can expect. ** While aesthetics is a matter of taste, Aesthetic Flexibility is a measure of how easily a given design would fit into a wide range of home or office décor schemes.

Benefits

  • Made in the USA by skilled Amish craftsmen
  • Simple design that matches most outdoor decors
  • Offers a choice of pre-stained color options or natural wood finish
  • Can support up to 800-pounds of user weight

Drawbacks

  • More expensive than some comparable models
  • Pre-stained versions only have one coat of stain applied
CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Garden Bench
4.4

Recommended For: Anyone. A bit more expensive than some options, but this bench is superb.

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Are you a bit heavier than average? Do you love outdoor entertaining?

If you answered yes to both of those questions, then you’ve probably run into a vexing, frustrating problem. Most of the furniture on the market today just isn’t made for bigger and heavier people. In fact, a great percentage of the furniture sold today will only support up to 300 pounds or so, which can make finding sturdy furniture a bit of a challenge.

Fortunately, the CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Garden bench is a happy exception to this rule. It’s a spectacular piece of outdoor furniture, but it is a bit pricier than other options you’ll find available. Even so, by the time you reach the end of this review, we think you’ll be impressed. Let’s take a closer look at everything this model has to offer.

An Overview of the CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Outdoor Bench

The CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Garden Bench is a roomy, simple bench design, offered in a variety of color options. If you decide you have to have one, you can choose from the following:

  • Unfinished
  • Dark Walnut
  • Cedar
  • Semi-Solid Black
  • Semi-Solid White

The semi-solid options are awesome because they provide a delightfully weathered look that some people love. In addition to the color options, you can select either a four-foot or five-foot bench, whichever better suits your needs.

An image of unfinished CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Outdoor Bench

Before we go further, let’s take a look at this bench’s core stats. Here are the basics:

  • Overall Product Dimensions:
  • Four Foot Variant: 51” W x 28” D x 36” H
  • Five Foot Variant: 63” W x 28” D x 36” H
  • Seat Height: 22”
  • Seat Depth: 19”
  • Seat Width: 46” (4-foot variant), 58” (5-foot variant)
  • Chair Weight: 55 pounds (4-foot variant), 65 pounds (5-foot variant)
  • Maximum Supported Weight: 800 pounds

These are superb numbers, although the seat height (of both variants) clearly marks this as a bench that’s optimized for bigger and taller folks. So much so that shorter people may not be able to sit comfortably on the bench for extended periods.

Fortunately, bench-style seating isn’t generally something you spend several hours a day lounging in, so that’s not normally much of an issue, and we love the impressive amount of user weight the chair supports!

Adjustability and Comfort

There’s nothing adjustable about the CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Outdoor bench, so the only thing to talk about here is comfort.

CAF Amish Bench on a beautiful patio next to a plant.

It’s more comfortable than you might expect from a piece of wooden furniture. The space between the slats on the seatback makes it substantially more breathable than benches with a solid seatback. However, since it’s all wood, this isn’t the kind of seating you’d want to spend an entire afternoon lounging in.

It could easily be made more comfortable, though, simply by adding a padded seat and/or seatback of whatever thickness you desire. Unfortunately, the big downside to doing so is that you’d be covering up the natural beauty of the wood and the simple but eye-catching Mission styling. Some people would regard that as fair trade, but many wouldn’t.

Ultimately, there are no right answers here. It comes down to what works best for you.

Assembly is Required

An image of CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Bench in Semi-Solid White

As is the case with most of the furniture you can buy online these days, if you decide you want one of these, it will arrive at your door in a large box and several pieces. You’ll have to do some work to get the CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Patio bench ready for first use.

The good news is that the production quality is exceptional, and the assembly instructions are clear and easy to follow. Expect the process to take about 45 minutes to an hour from unboxing and parts sorting through to completion, and adding a second person to the project isn’t likely to shave much time off of that.

Pros and Cons of CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Outdoor Bench

In no particular order, here are the things we think you’ll like best about the CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Bench:

  • It’s proudly made in the USA by skilled Amish Craftsmen.
  • It’s got a beautiful, delightfully simple design that blends in easily with most any outdoor color or décor scheme.
  • It’s offered in a modest selection of pre-stained color options, or if you prefer, you can get yours unstained, then finish it yourself as you wish, or leave it unstained and enjoy the beauty of the natural wood.
  • It can support an impressive 800-pounds of user weight.
An image of CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Bench in Cedar

On the other hand, as we mentioned, it’s a bit more expensive than some other comparable models on the market today, and if you opt for one of the pre-stained variants, know that the company only puts one coat of stain on. We would have preferred to see two here, but that’s not really a deal-breaker in our view, and we think most people would agree.

Final Thoughts on CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Garden Bench Review

We love the CAF Amish Heavy Duty Mission Garden bench, but surprisingly, it’s not quite our favorite. In our view, the Heavy Duty Amish Garden Bench offers slightly more value, being similar but slightly less expensive. Even so, this is a great piece of outdoor furniture, and we highly recommend it.


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