The Snowboard Bench for a Deck With a Bear on the Back
Every deck has one seat that gets fought over. Usually it is the one facing west, the one that catches the last light coming off the ridge, the one your brother-in-law slides into the second he shows up. If you are going to have a chair worth fighting over, it might as well have a story on the back of it. That is the whole idea behind the Colorado Bear Mural Snowboard Bench, a hand painted snowboard bench for a deck, built in Manitou Springs from a real retired snowboard and finished to sit outside for years. Colorado Ski Chairs makes it to order and ships it nationwide, and yes, it looks even better in person than it does on your phone.
What This Snowboard Bench Actually Is
Let’s get the facts straight before the romance kicks in. This is a bench, 60 inches wide, 34 inches tall, and 24 inches deep. The backrest is a real snowboard that already had a life before this one, retired from the slopes and given a second act instead of a landfill. It sits in a solid wood frame that does the structural work, so the board can be the star without having to hold up your Thanksgiving guests all by itself.
Across that snowboard back, hand painted in exterior oil paint, is a Colorado black bear and the blue Colorado C. Not a decal, not a printout, not a sticker peeling at the corner by August. Painted. By a person, with a brush, in Manitou Springs. The bear is a silhouette filled with mountain color, the kind of piece that reads clearly from across the yard and still rewards a closer look when someone leans in to figure out how it was made.
A snowboard bench for a deck has to earn its spot, and this one is a low bench on purpose. At 34 inches tall it tucks under a window or sits against a deck rail without stealing the view behind it. You get the character without the visual wall. Seats two comfortably, three if everybody is on good terms and nobody brought a big coat.
Why a Snowboard, and Why It Still Looks Like One
People ask why a snowboard makes good furniture, and the honest answer is that a snowboard was already engineered to take a beating. It is built to flex under a full grown adult, land jumps, scrape rails, and survive a season of getting tossed in a truck bed. Turning that into a bench back is not a stretch. It is arguably the most appropriate retirement a board could ask for.
The shape stays honest too. We do not sand the board down until it could be anything. You can still tell it is a snowboard, which is the point. The curve of the tail, the width across the middle, the way the nose rises just a little, all of it stays legible under the paint. A snowboard bench for a deck should look like what it is, a piece of mountain gear that decided to stick around and be useful.
The wood frame underneath is where the load lives. It is built for outdoor life, the same as the rest of what Colorado Ski Chairs makes, so the board on top gets to be the fun part while the frame quietly handles the job of holding people up. That division of labor is why the bench feels solid when you sit down rather than bouncy or precious.
Built to Live Outside, Because That Is Where the Good Seats Are
Here is the part that matters if your furniture history includes anything that swelled, cracked, or faded after one Colorado summer. This bench is hand painted in high quality exterior oil paint and finished to be water and weather resistant. It is made to live on a deck, a patio, next to a fire pit, or out by the pool, through sun and snow, and keep its color while it does.
Colorado weather is not gentle. You get the UV of high altitude, forty degree temperature swings in a single afternoon, and the kind of dry that shrinks lesser furniture into kindling. The exterior oils used here are chosen for exactly that. This is the same finish that goes on the ski chairs people leave out on Breckenridge and Vail decks all winter, so a bench is not asking it to do anything it has not already proven it can do.
Of course, if you would rather keep it inside, it works there too. Plenty of these end up in a mudroom under the coat hooks, in a finished basement bar, or in an entryway where it becomes the spot everyone sits to pull their boots on. Indoor or outdoor, the bench does not care. It was built for the harder of the two jobs, so the easy one is a vacation.
The Colorado Bear, and What Else We Can Paint
The bear is a Colorado classic for a reason. It shows up on trail signs, brewery walls, and about half the flannel in the state, and it still does not get old. On this bench the bear reads as a bold silhouette with the Colorado C, a design that says where you are from without needing a caption. It is the kind of thing that makes a visitor from out of state ask about it, which is exactly the opening you want on a nice evening outside.
Now, the pictured bench is the bear and the C, but that is a starting point, not a ceiling. This is a custom shop first. If you want an elk instead of a bear, we paint elk. Bighorn, moose, a trout for the fly fisher in the family, a mountain range you can actually name, a sunset in your colors, all of that is on the table. Custom painting runs $75 an hour, and the shop will talk through what your idea takes before anything gets started, so there are no surprises.
Want to match it to something you already own? The stain on the wood frame comes in a range including Blue and Grey, Gray, Ebony, Redwood, and Walnut, so the base can lean rustic or lean modern depending on where the bench is going. It is a hand painted snowboard bench for a deck, but it is also yours to steer.
Where This Bench Tends to End Up
Some pieces are one trick. This one moves around. The most common home is the obvious one, a back deck or patio where it becomes the seat with the best view and the best story. Put it where the afternoon light lands and it does double duty, comfortable to sit on and interesting to look at when nobody is sitting on it.
It is a natural by a fire pit, low enough that you are close to the warmth and wide enough that two people can share it without negotiating. Cabin owners like it on a covered porch, where guests park to swap ski stories before dinner. Lake houses use it as the boot and towel bench by the door. And more than a few land in an entryway or mudroom, where a 60 inch bench earns its keep every single morning as the place the whole family sits to gear up.
Businesses have started catching on too. A bench like this on a brewery patio, a shop entrance, or a mountain town storefront gives people a reason to stop, sit, and take a photo, which is free advertising that also happens to be a nice place to rest. It fits the ski town aesthetic without trying too hard, and it holds up to the traffic a public seat has to take.
A Word for the Sentimental Crowd
If you have an old board of your own in the garage, the one you swore you would ride again and both of us know you will not, this is a good way to keep it. The shop can build a bench around a board that means something to you, so the thing you learned on, or your kid’s first board, or the one that got you through a certain winter, becomes something you actually use instead of something you trip over.
A quick, honest note on that. Because this is a bench, not a full Adirondack chair, the material math is simpler than it is on our chairs. A chair built from skis takes four to five pairs, and a snowboard chair takes several boards, which surprises people. A bench like this is built around a snowboard back on a wood frame, so a single meaningful board can genuinely be the piece you see and sit against. If your idea needs more than what you have, the shop keeps a stock of retired boards and can match the rest, and they will confirm what your specific plan takes from photos before anyone cuts anything. No guessing, no surprises.
That is the difference between furniture you bought and furniture that is yours. One fills a space. The other tells a room where you have been.
How It Is Made, Start to Finish
Every bench is built to order in Manitou Springs, which sits right at the foot of Pikes Peak, so these are made in the same air the scenery comes from. Nothing is warehoused in a box waiting to ship. When you order, a bench gets built, which is why the details can be yours rather than whatever came off a line.
Production usually runs two to four weeks, sometimes a little longer in the busy stretch before the holidays, sometimes faster if you are up against a deadline and say so. The shop would rather you ask than assume. If you need it by a certain date, tell them when you order and they will tell you straight whether it can happen.
The board gets selected and prepped, the wood frame gets built and stained in your chosen color, and then the painting happens by hand in exterior oils. That last part is not fast, and it is not supposed to be. A hand painted snowboard bench for a deck is worth the couple of weeks it takes to do it right, and the finish is the reason the bench still looks good years down the road.
What It Costs, and What Comes With It
The Colorado Bear Mural Snowboard Bench as pictured is $641, and it ships free to the lower 48. That covers the bench built to the standard dimensions with the bear and Colorado C design and the stain color of your choosing. No hidden freight bill waiting at checkout, which on a piece this size is a real thing worth mentioning.
From there the options are yours. Want it as a rocker instead of a stationary bench? That is an extra $75, done with repurposed oak wine barrel slats, and it turns the bench into the kind of seat people do not want to get up from. Want a custom scene, a different animal, or your own board worked in? Custom painting is $75 an hour, quoted honestly before the work starts. You are buying a handmade good meant to last for years, so spread over the life of the thing it is a lot less expensive per year than the flat pack stuff that gives out after two seasons.
Prefer to talk it through with a person? Call or text Colorado Ski Chairs at 303.775.7273. They would genuinely rather have a two minute conversation about what you want than sell you the wrong thing, and if you have a photo of the board or the scene you are picturing, that helps them quote it fast.
The Gift That Beats Another Gift Card
Here is a truth about shopping for a certain kind of person. The skier or snowboarder who has everything is genuinely hard to buy for, because they already own three of every gadget and do not need a fourth pair of gloves. What they do not have is a bench built from a retired board with their mountain painted on it. That gap is exactly where this lands.
It works as a housewarming gift for the couple who just bought the cabin, a retirement gift for the person finally getting the deck time they earned, an anniversary gift for the two who met on a chairlift and never let anyone forget it, and a milestone gift for a big birthday that deserves more than a card. Because it is customizable, you can quietly make it personal. Their favorite animal, the range they hike every summer, the colors of the house it is going to. The recipient sees a bench. They also see that somebody paid attention.
And if you are shopping for yourself, no judgment here. Some of the best purchases are the ones nobody asked you to make. A snowboard bench for a deck is a small, permanent way to keep the mountains in the yard, and you do not need an occasion to want that.
Living With It Season After Season
Furniture that lives outside gets asked a lot over the years, so it is worth knowing what to expect. The good news is that this bench is built for a low maintenance life. The exterior oil finish is doing the heavy lifting against sun and moisture, so there is no annual ritual you are signing up for. Wipe it down when it gets dusty or pollen covered in spring, and that is most of the job.
If it lives somewhere brutal, full unshaded southern exposure at altitude, a covered spot or an off season move into the garage will stretch the color even further, the same as it would for any painted piece. That is not a requirement, just a way to be kind to it if you want it looking showroom fresh for decades instead of merely years. The bench will take the weather either way. It was made to.
Should something ever happen, a hard knock, a scrape, the kind of thing that comes from real use, the shop stands behind what it builds and can talk you through a fix. This is the advantage of buying from the people who made it rather than a warehouse three states away. There is a real person on the other end of 303.775.7273 who remembers how your bench was put together, because they are the one who put it together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Colorado Bear Mural Snowboard Bench made from a real snowboard?
Yes. The backrest is a real retired snowboard, given a second life instead of being thrown out, set into a solid wood frame that carries the weight. It is not a printed graphic of a snowboard, it is an actual board with the Colorado bear and blue C hand painted across it in exterior oil paint.
How many snowboards does this bench take?
A bench like this is built around a snowboard back on a wood frame, so one meaningful board can be the piece you see and sit against. That is different from our snowboard chairs, which take several boards each. If you are sending your own gear and your idea needs more than you have, the shop matches the rest from its own stock of retired boards and confirms exactly what your plan takes from photos first.
Can this bench really stay outside all year?
It is built for it. The bench is hand painted in high quality exterior oil paint and finished to resist water and weather, the same finish used on the ski chairs people leave out on Colorado decks through winter. Sun, snow, and Colorado’s temperature swings are what it was made for. It works indoors too if you would rather keep it in a mudroom or entryway.
Can I change the bear to a different design?
Absolutely. The bear and Colorado C is the pictured version, but the shop paints elk, moose, bighorn, trout, mountain ranges, sunsets, and custom scenes in your colors. Custom painting is $75 an hour, and you can pick from stain colors including Blue and Grey, Gray, Ebony, Redwood, and Walnut for the frame. Call 303.775.7273 to talk through your idea.
Why Buy From Colorado Ski Chairs
This is a small shop, locally owned and operated, that has been turning retired mountain gear into furniture people keep for years. Everything is handmade in Manitou Springs, built to order, and finished to survive the outdoors rather than just photograph well for a listing. When you buy here you are getting a real person’s work, not a container of identical benches, and you are keeping a snowboard out of a landfill in the bargain.
The bench comes from the same bench, so to speak, as the chairs, benches, and wall art the shop is known for, and you can see the rest of the ski and snowboard benches and the broader custom designs if you want to compare or combine pieces. A matched set on a big deck looks intentional in a way that store bought furniture never quite manages.
Mostly, though, people come back because the thing shows up looking better than they expected and then holds up. That is the quiet promise here. Build it right, finish it to last, and let the story on the back do the talking.
Claim the Best Seat on the Deck
If your deck, patio, or entryway could use a seat with some Colorado in it, the Colorado Bear Mural Snowboard Bench is ready to be built for you. Pick your stain, keep the bear or dream up your own scene, and let Colorado Ski Chairs handle the rest. Order online, or call or text 303.775.7273 and talk to a real person about the seat everyone is going to fight over. Fair warning, you may want two.
