Outdoor Furniture Upcycle

We saw this set of outdoor chairs and a table at a salvage yard.  They had nice retro lines, but were in bad shape. The plastic table round was cracked.

I clipped off all the old vinyl straps and washed them.

I then sprayed painted each one of them. That took forever. We were able to buy a roll of new vinyl. And following the directions from the company, we cut the strips, heated them up in hot water, stretched them, and attached them back to the chair (we did have to buy some new clips), as well as cussed at them.  I covered the cracked table round with tan vinyl (from my fabric stash). But they turned out really nice, and it's a great place to have dinner on these lovely desert evenings.

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Potted Plants Trick

Here is a trick that I learned from a professional indoor gardener. Her job is to maintain the plants inside offices, malls, restaurants, etc.  To use the cool pots that don't have any drainage or if you don't want them to drain onto your floors and if you don't like the look of saucers or plastic trays under your pots, this is what she does:

1 - Gather your supplies: plant, pot, plastic tray, nursery pot, styrofoam/newspaper, and moss.

 2. Put the tray in the bottom of the pot and the nursery pot on top but upside down.  Then put your plant on top of the nursery pot.  If the pot is too tall, you can cut it down, or buy a smaller pot.  You can use any kind of plastic container.  She uses plastic so it doesn't rot.  She has used old tupperware.

 3. Now wedge the foam and newspaper around the plant to stabilize it as well as provide a base for the moss.  This pot was tricky as it is narrower on the top. You are not filling up the whole pot, but just around the top.

4. Now cover the foam/newspaper with the moss. You now have a plant that you can water and not worry about the water damaging your floors.  

Scott and I really liked this pot when we first saw it at Home Goods.  We call it the "grown-up 2nd grade ceramic project."

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