Without a whole lot of work, a rusty plant stand can be repurposed and transformed into a stylish accent table for your deck.
CREATE | Published June 1, 2015
One of the things that I rescued from my grandma's house to repurpose recently was a metal plant stand. It was really rusty and probably could have just went to the landfill. But, since I am the person who would rather paint something and make it pretty again, I saw a purpose for this rusty stand. It has metal leaves, which coordinates with the leaves on the back of my outdoor chairs. It is also the perfect size to rest alongside a chair with a piece of glass on top serving as a side table.
Here is the before of my table....As you can see it was very rusty, but the base and leaves were still very much intact. And overall, it is still very sturdy.
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And after a little work and paint, here is the after....
The first thing that I did to the plant stand was rub it with a wire brush
. This did a fantastic job removing the rust, but since some spots were really rusty, it removed whole chunks of the plant stand. Oops! Now, there are some holes showing in the part where you'd put your plant, so I may decide to fill this area with something to hide them.But for now, it is fine with something sitting on top of the table. A few pieces around the metal leaves broke away as well. Since this is a table sitting outside and not part of my interior decorating, I'm being zen about all the little missing places.
After taking the wire brush to the plant stand, I spray painted it with two coats of Rust-Oleum Hammered Metal Spray Paint in Dark Bronze
. It is the color that I've used on my outdoor furniture to fix spots that were starting to rust and wanted this little side table to match. Even though it is called bronze, the paint actually ends up almost silver as you can see in the pictures. There are many colors of this spray paint available and it leaves a nice hammered look that hides a lot of imperfections. It also can be sprayed without priming the rusty metal first. Anytime I can eliminate a step, I'm happy.
To finish off the table, I added a round piece of glass
to the top. The glass had previously been used outside on another table that I got rid of. The size of glass that you'll need will depends on the size of what you'd be placing it on. You'll want to make sure that the glass is tempered so that it doesn't shatter into sharp pieces if it should break. Tempered glass will break into chunks.
Considering how rusty this plant stand was, I think it looks pretty great. Even if the "table" only lasts through the summer, it was worth the little bit of work to make it useful. Now I have a place to rest my sun tea and put my feet up...if there should ever be time this summer to do something like that!
**Update: Even though the Rustoleum spray paint doesn't HAVE to be primed, you probably should in order to protect what you are painting. It wasn't long before rust was forming again on the worst sections of this plant stand.**
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