Old Drawer Flower Box

This old drawer flower box is one of my favorite upcycles and still sits on my patio and is doing fabulously.

I’m still sharing projects from the potting shed makeover!

You can find links to all of the projects that went into the makeover at the end of the post.

It was a pretty huge feat, and we made a LOT of fun things to go on it.

Including this flower box made from an old drawer {edit: I’ve now learned this is a beehive lid!).

It is one of my favorite upcycles EVER and was pretty simple to update into a working flower box.

I have a quick video that shows all the steps for making the flower box.

You can also follow the step-out photos below.

I have had this vintage drawer beehive lid in my possession for a couple of years now.

I found it at a barn sale and fell in love!

It’s so chippy on the outside and has that wonderful old wood look on the inside.

It has been sitting in my potting shed holding unused flower pots.

But it was screaming to be something more.

To me, this gorgeous old drawer beehive lid was just begging to hold beautiful, bright flowers.

I knew I didn’t want it to set on the ground, so I went about designing some legs to raise it up.

The drawer is heavy, so the legs needed to be sturdy and solid.

A couple of 2×2 posts and scrap 1×4’s would work perfectly for very little cost!

I found 2×2 posts at Home Depot that were 36″ long, and I spent less than $5 on the 2 I purchased.

We cut them in half to make four 18″ table legs.

There wasn’t a good way to attach the legs directly to the drawer.

We cut scrap 1×4’s into 8 right triangles, 2 for each table leg.

The triangles could be attached to the drawer then, in turn, to the legs.

Here you can see how everything was attached.

The table legs were held in place to figure out where the triangles should go.

The triangles were then screwed to the drawer from the inside of the drawer into the triangles. T

he triangles were then screwed to the legs.

We did this for all 4 table legs.

The bare wood legs did not look great with the white chippy drawer.

They needed to be painted, but I didn’t want to take away from the drawer.

I wanted to use white paint, but was afraid it would be so bright that the new legs would not look right with the old drawer.

The solution?

White wash!

I made a white wash solution from some white paint I had on hand mixed with water.

I didn’t do any exact calculations, just thinned the water to the consistency I wanted it to be at.

If I had to guess, I would say it was 1 part paint to 8 parts water.

I worked on one leg at a time.

I applied a coat of the white wash then immediately wiped it off lightly with a shop towel then repeated until I reached the opaque coat that I wanted.

It took about 3-4 coats until I was satisfied.

The white wash isn’t too bright and doesn’t take away from the chippy awesomeness that is the drawer!

Before adding the flowers, I sprayed a coat of paint sealer around the outside of the drawer to preserve the chippy paint now that the box would be outdoors.

I sprayed 2 coats of Thompson’s Water Seal on the bare wood inside the drawer.

I didn’t place dirt directly into the drawer – I was afraid of it rotting over time.

Instead I arranged 5 pots, one in each corner plus one in the middle, in the drawer and filled them with flowers.

The inside of the drawer still gets wet when it rains or when I water the pots, but the water beads up beautifully and does not soak into the wood.

I love this addition to the patio! Just seeing it sitting there makes me happy.

UPDATE: The Old Drawer Flower Box is holding up great!

The Thompson’s Water Seal has done a great job protecting it from the elements.

I still do not add dirt directly to the box, but rather typically use one large, somewhat shallow pot.

Once all of the flowers in the pot bloom, you don’t even notice the pot in the box.

I will add another coat of the Thompson’s next spring prior to the gardening season.

It will be the first time needing to add it in 5 years!

Not too bad!

 

 

>> See where I party! <<

 

You may also be interested in these other projects from the patio makeover: