Tray -----> Table

Yet another project I'm working on is attempting to make the front of my house less sad looking. A lot of things I can't do anything about right now - things like siding & brick & my driveway. But everything else is on the table - landscaping, front door painting, porch decor, lighting, mailbox, house numbers, etc. Here's where I should show you a before photo of the front of my house. Um. I've got one of those somewhere. This is the first of many posts about this project so I'll dig that up & post it later. Right now, I'll just show you a quick little project I did for the front porch.

Here is a base for a side table I used to have. I bought two of the tables on clearance at Target a few years ago & the were mega cute. The problem is that the screws kept falling out & no amount of tightening them would fix the problem. Then I no longer had a place for the tables... so I dismantled them & used the legs for a make shift coffee table. That table had the same problem with the screws. They were just pointless screws. So that table was also dismantled & these went into the basement project room. That's where stuff lives until I decide what to do with it or I chuck it to the curb. When I was thinking about what kind of table to put on my front porch, an idea popped into my head for one of these bases.

My front porch is shallow, only 4 feet front-to-back... so everything I put on it needs to be smaller scale to be functional & not look stupid. I already knew which chairs I wanted but I needed something between them, for drinks & candles & stuff. The original table tops on these bases were only about 15" in diameter - pretty perfect for the space. But I no longer had the original tops, so I went looking for something else. Target has all sorts of outdoor accessories & my idea involved one the round plastic (melamine?) trays they always have this time of year. They had them in kelly green, blue, & coral colors... they were all OK but had weird patterns on the inside of the tray. I Figured I could paint or contact paper that part so I chose the green one. Then I went to grab some hooks & while passing an end-cap display, I saw this:

Oooooh, pretty. The colors are pretty & it was cheaper than the round tray I chose... $10 vs. $20. But it was rectangle, no round. Hmmmm. I really didn't think it would work on the base. But I liked it way better than the round tray so I bought it. I figured if it didn't work then I could always return it & buy the other tray.

It totally worked!! I loved it when I set it on the base, so out came the silicone adhesive & I attached them together. Forever. Or until the glue stops working.

And that is the story of my little porch table. I came up with an idea for the other table base too... but that's a post for another day.