Our New Patio Coffee Table

One of the first home improvement projects Jason and I took on at our house was our patio.  The two of us put it in together and it is still one of our favorite parts about our home.  You see, we were anxious for some space outdoors to relax after living in an apartment, where we had no yard or deck to call our own.  Over the past six years, we've slowly purchased some outdoor furniture to fill our patio, shopping end of the summer sales and clearance sections.  This latest project is probably the last piece of furniture we'll need, since our patio isn't that large because of our small, city lot.  We snagged this metal base from our neighbor Helen when she was throwing it out three years ago.  Apparently it used to hold her boiler in her basement back in the day.  It sat in our garage attic until a couple of weeks ago when we decided to clean it up a little and turn it into a coffee table for our patio.  Here's how we did it.

To begin, I set to work sanding the rust and old paint off and gave it a couple of coats of spray paint, taking proper safety precautions, of course.

In the meantime, Jason cut three pieces of cedar decking to length.  We used cedar decking because we liked the rounded edge it already had on it.  Cedar also stands up well to outdoor elements and weathers beautifully.  He also cut four pieces of 3/4'' treated lumber slightly less than the width of the frame to secure the cedar to and hold everything together.

Then he screwed the cedar to the four pieces of treated lumber with 1 1/4'' coated outdoor screws to make the tabletop. The treated lumber underneath will also help keep the tabletop from moving around too much, since we aren't attaching the cedar to the base.

Here is the completed table.  It is a nice little spot to place some extra flower pots and a drink or two.

Here are some other shots of our patio, just for fun.

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