My super-awesome $5 potting bench

[horsepoor]

I feel like this was pretty badass.  My dad helped me build a lean-to greenhouse onto our shop, and it needed a good workbench, but I didn't want to buy new materials to build one from scratch.  We had the dubious "luck" of our crappy renters splitting town and leaving a bunch of stuff at our rental house.  One thing that was worth saving was a workshop bench.  I hauled it home, removed the top piece, which had a flourescent light and power outlet setup (that is now in my shop).  I tiled the top with some marble tiles I had laying around that I'd picked up for about $1 each, and set in the sink and faucet we tore out of the kitchen after we bought this house.  I even had some fancy wood trim saved from a weird bulletin board thing that was in the basement of our house when we moved in.  Lastly, I topped it off by giving it a shallow shelf made from a pallet that came with a ton of fuel pellets we'd purchased. Also built the shelf underneath from scrap wood that was laying around. The $5 was for the Smurf blue gallon of mistinted paint, which I still have tons leftover.  This turned out so much nicer than anything I would have purchased or made from scratch, so I thought I'd share:

[Greg]

Cool, nice job.  That looks like a nice space.

[lizzzi]

Really, really nice. The glass of wine on top is the perfect touch.  Seriously, it's hard to believe it all was only $5. It looks like something you'd see in a fancy home and garden magazine.

[horsepoor]

Thanks!  It's a wonderful place to enjoy a glass of wine and soak up some sunshine on one of our sunny but blustery spring evenings.  I love it when I'm able to make something useful from scraps and stuff that would otherwise be taking up space in the landfill.

It's not pictured, but I also repurposed an old barbecue grate as a work surface over the sink, so I can fill containers with potting soil, then simply sweep the crumbs down the "drain" into the bucket below and reuse them.

[sheepstache]

Very nice!  And that grill idea is brilliant.  I could totally do that in my apartment with my cookie cooling rack.

I also like the design detail with the stripes but not the blue being on the wood trim.

[lizzzi]

But Sheepstache, I think the bright blue--which we are not going to see anywhere else in the universe--is what helps give it that unique, creative, hand-made look.

[sheepstache]

Haha, reading the sentence again I see how it could be parsed completely differently from how I meant it.  What I mean is: there's a strip of blond wood trim across the front.  And the aqua, beige, yellow and purple strips continue up on to it.  But the blue doesn't.  It's a neat detail.

Thanks for pointing that out.  Would hate for the OP to think I hated her marvelous blue.

[horsepoor]

Thanks, I read it the way you meant it. Had to go back and take another look to see what was being implied there. ;)

[nyxst]

I love this! Great work! The tile top and the skid shelf... Brilliant :)