Lowe's Creative Ideas - Furniture Rehab Project - Part One

The powers that be have conspired to make it harder for me to execute my Lowe's Creative Ideas June project. It's July now and the project has been done in fits and starts because I had a cholecystectomy (that's gall bladder removal) that was moved up by two weeks with only one day's notice, and then an amazing storm, called a derecho, left us without power in 95° heat and I'm home-hopping back and forth to our daughters' homes in an effort to keep cool and try to get some online work done. Hubby is holding down the fort, checking on the sump hole and the animals and joining me when he can.

We're so spoiled by electricity it isn't even funny. We have no cell phone service, no power, no internet, and no one has land line service either. Being cut off from the outside world feels eery. They're saying it might be July 7th before we have our electrical service restored. Of course, they're working on getting the most populated areas up and running first, but that isn't where we live. We'll get back to normal eventually.

Garden kitty Max waits to supervise the project.

Anyway...back to my Lowe's Creative Ideas project! We have a storage table that we keep on our deck by the pool and it has seen better days. It needed a fresh coat of paint, but I had this idea to make it more attractive and more functional. So I went to Lowe's, using the gift card that they provided for me, and I bought the materials I needed for this project:

• Two planters 
• Sealant 
• Can of paint 
• A colorful plant

This project was so easy it isn't even funny. I don't know why I didn't think of doing this before now. It was probably because I needed Lowe's to motivate me to put my thinking cap on and come up with some creative way to rehab a piece of furniture. Thank you, Lowe's.

"Measure twice, cut once."

The first step was to cut a square hole in the lid of the table, so that one of the planters could fit down in it. Now it's not that I can't use power tools, because I have been known to do that on occasion. I have photographic proof of it somewhere. But my husband loves to play with power tools, so I let him do the honors of cutting the hole.

The planters dropped down nicely into the freshly cut hole. Why two, you ask? The answer to that question will come later. (This is called "building suspense.")

One of the next steps was painting the table, of course, but that was when the storm hit and it didn't get done when it was supposed to. Certain things like packing up the contents of our freezer and taking it to our daughter's house so she could store it for us seemed to be a little more important at the time. We still don't have power, but we got it painted a few days later.

After painting, can you guess what came next? 


a) Cleaning the paint brush
b) Taking the cats for a walk
c) Eating supper
d) Planting the planter with a colorful plant
e) Whistling "Dixie"


When two of the above were completed, you might think the project was done. You would be wrong. (This is more "suspense building.") 

Stay tuned to see how this Lowe's Creative Ideas project ended up!

UPDATE: You can find Part Two here!