Transforming a recycled arbor for the garden

Barb Buckley found a bargain.  A Craigslist bargain garden arbor, …metal, …filigreed and perfect for her garden, right?  Wrong!  She had a vision for transforming it and fitting it into her style garden in Michigan, and as is usual with Flea Market Gardeners, …once she started, her project grew!  It grew to the size of her imagination.

$50. arbor

Barb says, “This is the picture that was on Craigslist, for $50! All the arbors I’ve seen like this start at $1000 and go up to over $2400… at first I thought the $50 was a misprint for $500. She just wanted it out of their yard and picked me from all the other people because I kept emailing her.”

How Barb fixed her arbor

She says, “I bought a dark oil bronze paint and was ready to give it a fresh coat, but my heart wasn’t in to painting it dark.

Soon to be painted

Barb says, “so I started with an ivory white, stood back & looked…..”

“Liked what I saw so I kept painting and painting…..”

Three LONG weeks of trying to paint after I got home from work, between the super hot days and the rain showers, the mosquitoes that would not leave me alone, I painted….

The grass grew taller as the project went on…

“Look where my lawnmower is, the neighbor kept watching my project and wondering WHY my grass kept getting longer….”

Watching the paint dry…

These pieces are 8 ft. high, I stood them up so they could dry. First coat of paint was an ivory oil base, then I sprayed them with a can of darker ivory and finally sprayed them with a “hammered” ivory which gives the look I was wanting….

“I used almost an entire can of clear spray to keep the garland looking like it does now”

The fun part..

The fun began as I tried to figure how to best put the lights on, this was not one of my successful tries…. ha!

After adding a 40 ft. off white extension cord, it lights up and works!! Taaaa-daaaaah!

So, now you see this is a TWO part project

Barb now decided that the arbor would be placed with her pond in the center,…but that needed to be redone.  Here’s what she did.

Check out the inside of the pool, it was disgusting and the water kept leaking out

The area I want to place it HAD a plastic froggie pond in it, which leaked, so John Bkly and I pulled it up. I scrubbed the crud off the liner for 2 nights and found where it had cracked. Bought a marine epoxy to repair the area and used 3 cans of the new rubber spray to seal the entire thing!

We pulled up the liner

Scrubbed liner,…NOT fun!

The pool is upside down and I had already scrubbed the green gunk off. This project has not been fun for days….
Looks better than new after using 3 cans of Flex Seal on it! Now just to hope it stops the leak.

The water seems to be staying in the pool

Close up of the re-furbished pond

Putting the arbor together, at last!

Thank you everyone!

The arbor is up with the help of Melissa Donaldson, Art Davis and John ‘Bkly’, thank you everyone!

I have daffodils in front of the rocks to bloom in the Spring and the lights around the top turn on at dusk and off after two hours, …thanks John Buckley for fixing that!  ~~ Barb Buckley

Finished!

About craigslist

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