I love thrift stores and the treasures often found within. As I was browsing a local thrift store one day, I found a fabulous basket that immediately spoke to me. Ok, it called to me and whispered sweet nothings in my ear but, I digress. It was nearly 18“ in diameter, of sturdy construction without any damage but it was not a very pretty color. It was priced to warrant throwing it in my buggy (“cart” for y’all in the north) with my usual comment to myself of “I have NO idea what I will do with this but I will come up with something fabulous” and off I went to the check out register to purchase the and a whole lot of other goodies.
Before I even got home (it was a short 10 minute drive) I knew I wanted to make a table out of the gorgeous basket and I wanted to feature it on my front porch, holding one of my beloved plants. After grabbing a 36” wood leg and 18” wood round from Home Depot (both can be found in the lumber section), the transformation began.
First, I lightly sanded the wood round and leg just to get the rough edges off. Next came 2 coats of espresso stain on everything, including the basket. Yep, y’all read correctly....I STAINED the basket! It required some patience and an old brush to get into all of the woven nooks and crannies but after 2 coats of stain (and a whole lot of stain splattered EVERYWHERE in the shop), all 3 pieces were a rich, gorgeous brown.
Big Daddy helped with the actual construction of the table. As is often the case, I come up with the brilliant, creative ideas and his amazing engineer’s mind helps make the vision come to life. We mounted a wood block to the bottom of the basket (and stained it to match the rest of the pieces) so we could screw the leg into the wood block and secured everything with a wing nut on the basket’s interior. Next, we screwed the wood round to the bottom of the leg, creating our table base and viola! My gorgeous outdoor table was created! It was that easy!
My thrift store basket (the caterpillar) became a unique, one of a kind table (the butterfly) to grace my front porch and I LOVE how the project turned out! The table gracefully holds an asparagus fern and nobody ever guesses that it has been anything but a fabulous place for a plant to rest or for a guest to set a drink!
