I’d ordered an armchair for the garden; when it arrived in a giant delivery crate and palette it felt wasteful just dismantling the crate and taking it to the tip, so I decided to build something useful with the wood instead. This time of year, I am always hunched over on the floor potting up my bedding plants into containers, so, using the scrap wood from the crate, I built this potting table. This is a super-simple DIY that is great for beginners and contains just a few simple steps! It also aligns perfectly with my commitment to reducing my household waste by repurposing and recycling at home, alongside undertaking a stance to do only eco-friendly shopping going forward.

First off, I disassembled the crate and picked out four of the longest planks to create the top of the table with. I also required 4 shorter boards for the underside of the table top to make it structurally secure.

Using an electric saw, I cut my 8 planks to size. I used four 120cm x 15cm planks for the top, and four 48cm planks for the support (but the planks can be to any size you want depending on how big you want to make your table).

I then laid my four table top planks on a level surface and used a wood glue on the edges to hold them together. I then glued over them the 4 support planks and waited for all of the glue to dry.

Once dry, I made four shallow drill holes in each support plank to easily screw in some wood screws and securely attach the bottom planks to the table top. The only thing you need to make sure of here is that your screws are long enough to go through both your support plank and the table top plank, but not too long that they go through the table top!

Now the table top had been built, in each corner I screwed in some metal hairpin legs. My hairpin legs I had left over from another project, but you can buy these legs easily and cheaply from places like Amazon or eBay. I then flipped the table over and gave the wood a couple of coats of clear protective exterior wood varnish.

And that’s all there is to it! I now have a designated table in my garden to pot up my petunias, and I’ve managed to reuse rather than contribute to the waste pile.