Upcycled Bird Bath/10 on the Tenth

Welcome to $10 on the 10th, where DIY, Lifestyle and Home Decor Bloggers share ideas under $10.00.

Our theme this month is Upcycling and Recycling. One of my favorite things to do.
Last year in a fit of carelessness, I broke a cute bird bath.

It sat pretty low to the ground. I think I threw something down into the flower bed, hit it and snapped it right off of the base. 

This is metal so I was a little surprised that I was able to break it. 

It hung around the deck for almost a year. I was waiting for Bill to get sick of seeing it so that he would fix it for me. 

He didn't. This year during the spring deck clean up, I moved it from the back of the house to the garage. I even mentioned that it needed to be fixed. He didn't take the bait. 

Extreme boredom prompted me to give it a try. 

The metal fitting needed to be removed in order to see if it could be fixed.

I used locking pliers to get a good grip on it. To my shock, it came loose.

The stand to an old Christmas mailbox would work for now since we were under lockdown.

All the Christmasy doo dads were removed from the base. There was snow, garland, and grapevine. 

I needed a screw with threads that would match the threads in the bird bath. A quick dig through our stash of screws yielded a perfect screw. 

 The other end needed to be able to screw into the wood so we used a hack saw to saw the head of the screw off. 

It took a while but it worked.
I carefully drilled a hole into the top of the base. I wanted to make sure that I didn't inadvertantly make the hole too big and ruin the whole project so I started with a small drill bit and worked my way up.
I meant to glue the pieces together for added security but to be honest, I was so excited that I may have forgotten that step.

How to marry these two together?

I was a little over the rusty look. After a good brushing, it got a couple of coats of spray paint. 

My favorite paint for the garden is Rust-oleum Painter's Touch 2xs in Moss Green.

 I've touched up a lot of garden accessories with it.
I had this on hand but it is almost empty so I need to get some more. It's $3.98 a can. I'll get some more next time we can get out.
Found bricks help it stand in the garden. I love that this is repaired.

It adds more interest now that it is taller than it was originally.

Zinnias and cosmos will surround this darling in a couple of months.
This was fun to do. It adds a fun new element to the garden. It was also fun shopping the yard.

That is it for now.
Be sure to check out my other friends on the hop.
Katie

Bluesky at Home
Apple Street Cottage
Patina and Paint
At Home With Jemma
French Ethereal
Pandora's Box
Decorate & More With Tip 
The House house

Linking with these parties:
Follow The Yellow Brick Home 
A Stroll Thru Life
Between Naps On The Porch

Farmhouse Living Room End Table

Hi Guys, 

Happy Friday. 

Here's the reveal of the new side table in the living room. 

I showed you my "new to me" bedside table two weeks ago. 

I think it's Empire or Victorian. I'll have to do some research and get back to you. I just love it. 

Below is a picture of our old bedside table which in reality is only nine years old. 

It was mountain cabin meets suburban life. I just made that up but it's from Lane and I cannot for the life of me remember the name of this collection. I've even tried to search for it online but it appears to have been scrubbed from the internet. Probably because the tops of these are CR@P - bad word alert! 

I was very careful not to put a water glass on my nightstand but of course I forgot a couple of nights when I was tired. I think a vase also tipped over but I can't remember.  

He was already gone by the time we got these, but we had a cat that would drink out of our water glasses at night. I think he would deliberately spill them to wake us up but he's gone on to the afterlife. I don't think he is spilling any water where he ended up, if you know what I mean. 

Anyway back to our tall table tale. The tops bubble and chipped. 

Bill wanted to give mine away but what kind of blogger would I be if I did that? 

My brother and sister in law have pieces from the same collection out at their lake house. 

My SIL's table has bubbled up as well which means this was not just a fluke. 

 I slid the table out to the garage. Here is my tip for moving big, heavy pieces of furniture. Flip it over and slide it. I've moved ginormous stuff down the stairs with this method. Put it on a blanket to slide stuff across wood or tile. 

I used CitriStrip to remove the finish. It isn't quite as potent as the old hazardous stripper but it also doesn't require a skin graft if you accidentally get it on you. I am kidding here - sort of. The fumes won't make you pass out either. 

Patience is required. I usually pour some on, brush it all over and then let it set for a while. 

In a rookie move, I did the top first. The top is the easiest so it should be left for last. 

It was all going okay until I got to the doors. The raised part of the panel was made of plastic. 

It started to melt a little with the stripper. Bill and I decided the doors had to go. 

He even said something like "Cheap cr#p!" 

Stripping is a messy job. I used a scraper and globbed the stuff into the trash. Once everything is stripped I gave it a quick wash with warm soapy water. 

At the end of the first day most of it was stripped. I still needed to strip the shelf because now it was going to show.

The rest of it was waiting for a finish. 

I couldn't resist staging the shelves to see what they will look like. The finish reminds me of some of the Jacobean revival furniture that I've refinished over the years. I thought about trying a Restoration Hardware type of finish but I felt that the color that it was too dark for that. 

The next morning, after my coffee, the piece got a good sanding with our orbital sander. 

One of the bubbled areas still has a slight flaw but it is so much better. 

It didn't take any time at all to prime the surface to get it ready for paint. The primer dries in about an hour. I put the knobs on it to see what it was going to look like when it was painted. 

Cute. 

While the paint was drying, which took forever, I refinished the pull. 

The pulls on these were oil rubbed bronze. I spray painted them silver and then gold at Christmas in an effort to see if I liked this piece enough to refinish it. This was before my blogging obligation kicked in.  

It turns out the pulls were originally brass coated over silver. It goes well with the blue and white porcelain knobs that I found at Hobby Lobby. 

Cute so far. It took about three days for the paint to dry. It stayed tacky a long time. Probably because it wasn't fully dry from the stripper.  

The paint color is Snowbound by Sherwin Williams. This is a nice bright white with cool undertones instead of warm. It's the same color that is on my kitchen cabinets. The rest of our painted furniture has warm undertones. 

On Thursday, it was dry enough to drag into the house. I pushed it into the dining room so that I could begin to decide where to put it. 

Wouldn't this be a cute wine bar in a dining room? I can visualize those criss cross things to hold wine in the bottom niche. 

It stuck out too far into my dining room but what a great use for an old piece.

You could put openers and stoppers in the drawers. 

I tried it next to the couch in the living room next but that didn't work either.

It ended up next to my recliner. 

This is great. The narrow drawer is perfect for my iPad and phone. The big drawer holds my camera and chargers. There is also a little pillow in there for nap time. 

Cute, cute, cute! 

That's what I did last week. 

I can't wait to show you what I worked on this week. 

Look at how cute Dixie looks. She thought she was in trouble. 

Follow me on Instagram for up to the minute updates. 

I'm trying this YouTube thing too. 

Starting out on these other platforms is depressing. 

Love y'all. I appreciate you so much. 

Have a great day! 

Katie 

Cottage Cabinet

We got this cabinet from my brother in law. 

He got it from his dad's garage.
It held auto body paint. 
When Bob gave it to me he said he knew that I could do something with it. 
He calls me the McGyver of home decorating. 
Did you ever watch that show?

That was one of our favorite shows when we got married. 
I was honored to take on the challenge of this piece. 
New black knobs and some clean up was about all it needed at the time. 
It stored videos and video games in Jonnie's room. 
I started thinking about painting this piece after I found a similar piece at the thrift store.

It looked so cute after being painted. 

I knew that the other cabinet would look good too.
Bill believes that both of these little cabinets are made out of leftover or repurposed pieces of exterior siding. 
To me they are rustic and charming. 



Painting is easier with the doors off. I usually don't paint the interior but I might want to leave the doors open at some point.   

All those interior pieces of wood were not structural. 
They held smaller shelves for smaller cans of paint.
They popped right of with a hammer. 

Usually after the first coat, I'm thrilled.
The first coat only revealed the flaws. 
The top was a weird piece of early particle board. 
It just disintegrated near the nails. 
There are visible nail holes from when they were taken out of the siding. 

See the blue paint?
Jonnie and his friends painted his room as a boy scout project when they were in the fifth grade. 
No, no, no. 
Allowing fifth graders to paint is not a good idea. 
The old top made a good template for a new top or so I thought. 
Cut twice - measure not at all. Oops.

There is nothing sophisticated about this top. It took almost three widths of 1 by 4s. I didn't join them. They are just screwed in place but it is definitely an upgrade from what was here before. 

Paintable caulk covers a multitude of sins.

Once the doors were put back on, there were still issues. 

What in the world? Did he use it as a memo board? 
Those look like staple holes.

Right now it is Rebekah's room.
Which caused a domino effect. 

I'm not sure how it happened but suddenly I have too much furniture. 
I know, wah, wah.  
If I move one thing, it causes a fit of consternation trying to get everything to fit in this house.
This is just a sneak peak at the cottage cabinet and  
I'll be back with more pictures later but that is it for now. 
Inservice starts on Thursday so I'm in a rush to get everything finished. 
The post about my crib repurpose is here. 
Have a great day. 
Katie  

Linking with,
Funky Junk Interiors   
French Country Cottage