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.

Thanks for reading!

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Home Stories A to Z

Our Wine Cellar: The End

Our wine cellar and storage room is finally complete!  My husband Jason spent many hours in this room working on getting it fixed up.  If you missed the first post about how this room looked before and to see the whole process, you'll want to head over here to view it.  I hope you enjoy looking at how we finished this room.

Here are some pictures of what the room looked like before.















Here are the finished wine shelves and the cabinet doors.











The cabinets store things we wish to keep out of view in the room, like extra wine glasses and Tupperware.







The left side of the wine shelves hold all of our white wines.

Here is a detailed picture of how the neck of the wine is held secure on the shelf.

The right side of the shelves hold all of the red wines.

This is a close-up of the puck lights Jason installed on the wine shelves.

Jason installed laminate flooring in this room.  This wasn't our first choice in flooring, but the price was right.  He painted the floor with waterproofing paint and then covered the entire surface with a below grade vapor barrier to protect the flooring from any moisture that should leak up.

We purchased the rug from Pier One this past summer and really love it!

We reused the same shelves that were in the room but freshened them up with some gray paint.

These shelves hold the kitchen items I do not use everyday and don't have room for in my tiny kitchen.

We were interested in some type of light fixture to hang from the ceiling but didn't want to have to wire anything in the ceiling because of the exposed floor joists.  I thought that a lantern with a candle would provide a little light and some ambiance but would not be too harsh.  We checked a couple of TJ Maxx stores in our city and finally found one that we liked.  We hung it from rope and tied it to the floor joist.

I bought the bistro table at a rummage sale before Jason and I were even married.  It works perfectly in the room and provides a little seating and a surface to set wine glasses down.

The display area functions as a place to open a bottle of wine and also as a place to keep our wine books.

Just for fun, here are a few pictures of the room at night.

This room was a fun transformation from start to finish.  We didn't spend a large amount of money but got a space that we love and hope will be a selling point should we sell our home in the future.  I hope you enjoyed viewing the changes we made as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you!

I'm linking up to:

Miss Mustard Seed



Just a Girl

Tatertots and Jello



Serenity Now



Thrifty Decor Chic



My Girlish Whims

Simple Home Life

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia