Unexpected Recycle

About 3 or 4 years ago our puppy boxer ate our leather couches (among many other things!). I happened to find our current couches at a yard sale shortly after the destruction and they came with a matching ottoman that was missing 2 of the legs. It functioned as a make shift bench until the toys took over in our family room and some where along way our lovely dog ate one of the corners of it. We tried to cover the hole with pillows, but this piece of furniture was really a waste of space and it made its rounds through several rooms of our house. We knew that if we wanted to get rid of it we would have to take it to the dump.

Poor ottoman just never got a chance to really show us its potential!

These past few weeks have been spent spring cleaning and it was time for the ottoman to go! I took a good look at it and realized that the wooden frame was hollow and appeared to be perfect size for a raised garden bed, something that we have also been spending the last couple of weeks getting cleaned up and ready for the growing season. My brother had made a table top garden bed for my parents for Christmas, which came out really cool and allows access to the garden without getting down on your knees. I happened to have a cheap little table with screw on legs that was in the garage sale pile, so I took the legs off and Mike attached the hardware so the legs could be screwed on to the now naked wooden frame of the ottoman. I bought a cement mixing tub (that happened to fit in the frame perfectly) and voila, we had a raised garden planter!

But of course I had to add my some decorative touch so I added some mosaic tile accents around it…

First you get some tiles and break them into little pieces with a hammer  Then you put them together as you want them to appear in the finished product

I used packing tape to keep the design together, then I lifted it off the wood.  I applied a tile adhesive, it was like icing a cake.

The taped tile design is pressed into place, tape removed and then grout is applied. 30 minutes later the excess grout is wiped off...

It turned out pretty nice, I think it will be my new herb garden!