Make An Outdoor Side Table Out Of A Planter, step by step

After a slew of requests, we are back to share some details about how we made our planter-turned-side table, our Hands-on doggy food & water station and our pooch-friendly floor pillows back when we spruced up our porch using whatever we could grab at Home Depot for Better Homes & Garden’s 48-Hour Challenge.

One of the parameters of the challenge was that we could only use materials that could be picked up at Home Depot, but they do not sell green ceramic side tables, outdoor floor cushions or puppy-related paraphernalia. Until now. Who knew that a tube of Liquid Nails, a plank of wood and four $1 molding-pieces-turned-legs could create something so sweet for our consistently-thirsty-sometimes-hungry chihuahua?

Gotta enjoy that it was a tool-free project (no screws, nails or hammer required!) – and of course a few coats of exterior semi-gloss paint made it porch friendly in a snap (we had Glidden’s Safari Green color matched to a small Behr paint test container for a especially low-cost transformation):

As for the bowls, they were items we already had (a few small accessories that were not from Home Depot were permitted to “finish off the look”) and we enjoy how the yellowy-green dishes play off of the green pedestal that we made (we even got them pet-approved by showing them to Burger’s vet before putting them to use). So that is the story of how Burger’s $10 feeding station came to be… but what about his floor pillows?

Well, we simply purchased this strong $25 lounge chair cushion from the patio furniture department at Home Depot…

…. and cut it in half to create two floor pillows for puppy perching:

Two plush floor pillows for $12.50 a pop is not bad at all, and cutting and hand-stitching each of them up on one side only took about 15 minutes. Needless to say, Burger appreciates our effort on a daily basis.

And then there is our little planter-turned-side table project. For a grand total of $40 we snagged a giant green ceramic planter, a terra cotta saucer and Thompson’s Water Seal spray (specifically formulated for sealing terra cotta pieces). And we in fact simply used leftover porch and floor paint from painting our striped deck to paint the top and the sides of the saucer cream after we spray sealed the underside with Thompson’s Water Seal for a weather-proof finish (now humidity inside the planter or extreme cold will not effect our paint job).

We enjoy the pop of color that it brings to the whole porch, and now there is a spot for a book, a little drinky-drink, or even a plate full of bbq.

So there it is. Three plain and low-cost ways to make a side table, two floor pillows and a feeding station for your pet. No hammer or screwdriver required. We also shared our little lightbulb-cover-turned-hanging-candle-holder walkthrough a few weeks back…

…and outlined how we painted our deck (with subtle stripes) right here. So there is truly no reason why our porch cannot be your porch of you so desire. Glad summer sprucing and puppy pandering, everyone!