Garden Cart: Keepin' It Real!

Don't you hate blogs where all the projects turn out perfectly the first time? That's sure not the case on my blog! I have plenty of fails. This project almost turned into one of them! 

In a recent post, I shared the "before" of my grill-to-garden-cart project. This cart will eventually end up on our patio and be used as a cart for my herbs and smaller patio pots.

The project started out ok but quickly turned ugly, as I soon realized that spray painting the wooden slats was a very bad idea. In order to cover the irregularities in the wood, I had to hold the spray paint can in place too long, causing blobs and drips of paint. Not exactly the look I was going for!

But instead of switching gears, I stubbornly soldiered on through nearly two cans of spray paint, making a bigger mess with every coat of paint.  Sometimes I am much too slow to abandon a bad idea!

After several days of this spray painting fiasco, I finally admitted defeat. Clearly, brushing the slats was the only way to go. Too bad it took me so long to admit what a more reasonable person would probably have seen from the start!

Meanwhile, I also decided that ivory was a bad color, too, since I want to de-emphasize the slats so that it looks a bit less like a grill cart. Since I was re-grouping anyway, why not change the color, too? My Plan B was to switch to a less noticeable gray paint. Spouse suggested starting with some gray primer which we had on hand.

Sure enough, the slats covered much more easily with a brush than a spray can. Happily, the primer has disguised most all of my spray painting mistakes!

If the rain ever stops around here, I will paint over all the slats with a final coat or three of gray outdoor paint.

Now the cart itself was a much easier thing to tackle. Once it was stripped of the slats, I hosed it down and let it dry.

I've given it two or three coats of black spray paint, turning it upside down to paint the undersides. This is how it looked after just one coat. Now this is the type of project that is perfect for spray paint!

After much discouragement, I finally think this grill-cart-turned-garden-cart project is going to work out after all. With luck, I hope to have it finished up yet this week!

jp