Recycled Garden Project: Dressers!
Like these creative gardeners, turn a dresser into a garden potting bench, planter box or ‘stage’ to display garden treasures..
Linda Gladman took a few Flea Market Gardening essentials like a window, a garden sign and a galvanized container and created a vignette extraordinaire on her outdoor dresser top. Borrow this idea and you could change it around with the seasons! This is what I call a ‘work table.’
Dressers as Garden Planter Boxes
Each of these gardeners around the US have upcycled an old, abandoned dresser, turning them into a garden! Dressers will last longer if kept under a covered porch, but if you’d like to keep it outside, simply paint it with exterior house paint or Marine varnish for the most durability. We’re always looking for more suitable dressers found on trash day or at yard sales to replace the ones too shabby.
A thrift shop dresser, paint and flowers plus an easy “how to!” Jeanie Merritt’s dresser project merited its own set of instructions here in Jeanie’s garden dresser drawers and proves that you also can transform a dresser for your garden.
Trina Bertoldi says “Trash Pile wicker chest find! It was wet and not suitable for inside but perfect for my flowers! It makes me smile.” Haven’t you seen one of these dressers before, sitting sad and discarded?
Hint:
Keep the drawers level by placing bricks toward the back of each one until weighted correctly when filled with plants and soil. Also use bricks stacked under the bottom drawer, if necessary!
Before & After: Old Dresser Becomes a Garden Potting Bench
When used as a potting table, a dresser gives you plenty of storage for your gardening tools. Remove a drawer or two to create shelves for your pots and potting soil. You can even add tile or a sheet of metal to the top to make it more durable.
Jeanne Sammons’s charming potting table made from a door, a table with room for pots and storage underneath, a bracket for hanging a plants and a pretty bowl for decoration.
Brenda K. Colwell
and after!
Brian Stephan says “I’ve repurposed an old dresser into a potting station.” Brian’s potting table is kept under a patio cover.
Karen Wilson was bold when painting this dresser for outdoors. Every garden needs a bit of red!
Kay Bassett, “I saw a much larger version of this in a magazine. Went junking & found this small chest that filled my creative need to have one of my own. So much fun to create!” Adorable, we say!
Dressed Up for Display Space
Jake Hernandez “Rescued this gem from the side of the road on a snowy night during the winter. I gave the top 3 full coats of exterior white paint, satin finish. After it was dry I placed it where I wanted it and began to fill her up!”
Jake says her “buffet garden” it was pretty simple actually. She says, “It was weathered before I started work on it” so she prepped the wood, painted and decorated! For exactly how, see Jake’s beautiful buffet garden.
Annie Grossart-Steen who specializes in primitive paint finishes and recreations in her shop, Pondside Primitives says, “Here’s the dry sink on the side porch…”
Sue Shackelford of SueS Junk Treasures, lives in Western Maryland in the mountains where she has the true four seasons. She says, “I have combined my passion for Flea Marketing and gardening and truly enjoy both!” Her dresser all in pastels has a dreamy quality and also uses a window a background to treasures placed on top.