Vintage Potting Bench – DIY – Outdoor Extravaganza

Guys, since forever I’ve wanted a potting bench! Some girls want diamonds… fancy clothing but not I (truthfully I won’t turn my nose up at that stuff – HA)!  But, seriously I love to putter and create so much, give me some vintage misfits and a few tools and I’m very happy creating all the things! Like this potting bench, I simply LOVE the way it’s turned out – some (I won’t name names) thought I had lost my mind – and maybe I have a bit… haha! But – now it’s his favourite thing on the porch! Ain’t that the way?

Outdoor Extravaganza

And that little segue brings us right into the last post for the #OutdoorExtravaganza – it’s been so much fun participating in this series, I’m sad it’s only 3 weeks long! I’d like to say a special thank you to Shauna for this fun experience – if you haven’t popped over to visit her beautiful blog yet, you really should – amazing DIY projects and gorgeous hosting ideas, organizing tips and tricks, gardening and phenomenal recipes plus she’s a fellow Canadian! Run, don’t walk – Satori Design For Living! Thanks my friend – this has been so much fun! xo  Today the Outdoor Extravaganza gang is sharing,  paint & build-it projects! YAY! You can find all of that INSPO at the end of my post… NOW, let me show you how I made this little cutie-patootie potting bench! Can you tell, I’m smitten? 

This busy little potting bench is so functional on our porch, we’re kind of wondering how we did it for so long without it! Speaking of the porch, if you’ve missed any of the sneak peeks along the way, no worries, I’ll link up the latest for you here —>  Planting succulents for the porch  —  Our romantic getaway (hint, it’s on the porch)   and  Flowered wreath DIY (my fave) – go check them out and let me know what you think, too much romance? I love to hear what you guys have to say! 🙂 And we have more porch goodness coming too, yay! 

Vintage Potting Bench – before

If any of you hang out with us over on Instagram then you’ve actually seen it when I was stalking an ugly shelf that lived in the shop! And you also saw my wheels turning, I even shared some behind the scenes building when we made this vintage potting bench… seriously guys, I over share on there, go follow along. 

Again with the nagging… if you follow us on IG <— HINT – you also saw my barn stash and were I lugged this beaut out from! I don’t share our barn stash with just anyone! Ha ha ha – yes I do.  😉 This little table used to belong to my Nanny and has been waiting in the barn for such a long time – too long! Waiting for the “perfect” refinish, I simply love that I’m using it and if I want to refinish it later, I can – no vintage tables were harmed in the making of this potting bench, pinky swear! 

Those two before images – ugh! I have to show you the ugly first, right?  😉 Let’s get down to business, shall we?

Vintage Potting Bench – DIY

So let’s talk turkey… *spoiler alert  The upper green cabinet needed to be modified. Keep in mind, Bud was totally thinking I had lost it… “let’s just take one side off and trim the shelves” – OKAY – looney-toon – his eyes were saying! “I can see how cute it will be in my mind’s eye – trust me”!  And, this is how we made it happen… 

1. Measure your cabinet top – ours was 42″ wide.
2. Measure your table, leg edge to leg edge, ours was 31″, I played around with having the top be wider than the bottom legs, but that looked odd. We needed to “shrink” the upper cabinet by 11″.
3. Decided now if you want to modify your vintage cabine – well actually decide before you take it off of the wall! This green cabinet lived in the shop and was here when we bought the house – and was already modified in a past life. I mean it was ahhhhhbused! It was so rough, so for me the decision was very easy – MODIFY! Gently as possible take one side off of your cabinet – we caused some extra damage doing this – but I patched the pieces that came off with wood glue and brad nails. YAY! 
4. Measure and cut your cabinet to it’s new determined width; we started at the top and followed the marked cut-line up the back all the way to the bottom – then we moved to the center shelves and cut them off  – following the cut-lines. The tool for this is the oscillating saw – mind blow how well this little piece of kit works! #NotSponsored

Image source

*full disclosure… this isn’t the one we used the one we used is old as the hills and not as pretty! 🙂

Now it’s time to reassemble… we used wood glue and brad nails to put the side back on (the inner shelves were nailed from the back too so they stayed straight). We decided to not screw the top cabinet to the table – this piece can be used as a temporary potting bench. I had wanted to paint it white at first, but the green really grew on me and I decided that I can always paint it later if I’d like! Once it was all back together we moved it to the porch – gave it a good deep clean and that’s when the fun started – styling! 

Vintage Potting Bench – Reporting for porch duty

I added some vintage yard sticks to the front of the shelves – I love how that looks!

Pretty lavender – I’m obsessed! So much so I want to plant full fields of it… don’t tell Bud!

A couple of vintage hooks – yes please! I love how my lady looks out over the property, she makes me smile!

A busy planting day – we filled the copper ash bucket below the potting bench with soil – so handy!  Here you can peek a couple of projects I have yet to share. 🙂 Hope you’ll stick around to see those too.

This little table isn’t perfect… at some point in it’s life someone made a makeshift drawer front, still cute with the original glass knobs.

So what do you think, am I cray? haha don’t answer that rhetorical question. 😉  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed participating in this year’s Outdoor Extravaganza I sure hope you’ve enjoyed it too?!  As I promised above, there is so much more inspiration from the OE gang – enjoy!  

Thank you so much for stopping in! xo 

Satori Design for Living | Vinyet Etc. | The Happy Housie | The DIY Mommy

PMQ for Two | Clean and Scentsible | Finding Silver Pennies | Casa Watkins Living | So Much Better with Age

Zevy Joy | Shades of Blue Interiors | Amber Tysl | Craftberry Bush | A Pretty Life

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