When we moved to Colorado, we downsized our backyard from a giant yard and patio with plenty of potential disasters for kids to a small backyard patio about 1/4 the size. It’s completely fenced in and I can see out to it from two large windows in the living room; which means I can send the kids out to play while I get some stuff done inside without having to worry about them. *Pause for a huge sigh of happy relief*
We sold all of our patio furniture when we moved in order to save space in the moving truck (see our old backyard and patio here), so we had to start from scratch when it came to furnishing the new patio. I hadn’t seen our place before we moved in (my husband did the house hunting on his own since it was out-of-state) and wasn’t sure how much room we really had. When we got here, I was so excited about the size and knew that it would fit a small patio table and chairs perfectly.
The problem was that patio furniture is SUPER expensive – even for a small table and chairs and even though there were end-of-summer sales happening. So I decided to get creative. I had seen a picture on Pinterest a while back that featured a patio table made from an old kitchen table re-covered with wood planks and I thought – genius! So we headed to the thrift store and found a table that was the perfect size and just happened to be 50% off (score). Thus the process began to transform it.
Here’s a breakdown of the cost of the project:
- Kitchen table – $18 (thrift store)
- Spray paint – $3.87 (Color: Green Apple, satin)
- (2) 10 ft. 1×6″ common boards – $22.96 (Home Depot)
- (2) 1×2″ poplar precut boards (I don’t recall the length) – $1.89 (Home Depot)
- Wood stain – $3.68 (Home Depot // Behr with weatherproofing in color “Russet”)
- Screws – $5.58 (Home Depot)
Here’s the process of transforming the table:
- Remove existing tabletop (it was screwed into the base in several spots & very easy to remove)
- Lightly sand the white table base, then spray paint it green apple.
- Once dry, I put three layers of polyurethane spray on to protect it from the elements since it would be outdoors.
- Cut my 1×6″ boards to form a new tabletop that would fit the existing table base with a slight overhang
- Cut two braces from the 1×2″ boards that fit the width of the inside of the table base (so I could set the tabletop right inside the existing base)
- Screw the 1×6″ boards to the (2) 1×2″ braces, being sure to center them.
- Lightly sand the edges of the tabletop
- Stain the tabletop
- Lay the tabletop face down on the ground and flip the base upside down on top of it. Screw the tabletop into the existing holes on the base, using the same screws that attached the old tabletop.
This was my favorite DIY project to date in the new house because it was super easy and I am totally in love with the result! If not for the drying time with the spray paint and stain, I probably could have completed it in a day.
The final touch came from finding chairs – again, super expensive. I knew we needed something small since the table was pretty tiny, and I wanted something that would be easy to store in the winter in our garage. So after checking prices and options all over the place, we eventually went with these folding chairs from Ikea. Price: $12.99 each / $51.96 total.
That brings my “operation: furnish the backyard patio” project to $107.94.
WAY cheaper than any other option I had come across in my browsing. Plus, none of them were quite as cute.
It may be the end of the summer, but we are milking every minute we have left of the warmth by eating lunch and dinner out here as often as possible! By adding some mood lighting (2 light strands from Target, $12 each), the dining space is a little more defined (the other half of the patio has a small Step2 Woodland Climber 
The best part is that It’s small enough that we can store it all (including the table) in our garage for the winter and next summer it will be ready and waiting when the sun reappears.
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