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| 6/24/2010 2:11:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article
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Kathleen Ellyn/Chieftain
Careful measuring before cutting (left) is a key. |
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| Brass screws won’t rust. |
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You can build a potting table
Salvage wood gets a second life
By Kathleen Ellyn
Wallowa County Chieftain
Most of gardening is done on your knees, but a good potting table can make the job of starting young plants, creating baskets, or transplanting from one pot to another much easier. And a good potting table is a luxury one doesn't have to do without.
Potting tables are so easy to make and can be made with such inexpensive materials (sometimes free) that almost anyone can have one.
Chieftain ad sales representative Jim Sackett and I decided to demonstrate the ease of building a potting table by recycling some of the old rails from the Wallowa County fairgrounds race track and creating an outdoor potting table with them. Although we chose to make a rustic, outdoor potting table the basic design can be easily modified to make a patio or deck sideboard or a shop table.
Since the rails (mostly 2" x 6" ) were salvage, there was no cost there. The (4" x 4" ) pressure-treated redwood legs (water and bug resistant) were purchased at Bj's Lumber and Tools in Enterprise for $6.50 each. The only other expense was a handful of wood screws. Jim chose 2 1/2-inch hex-head screws so that they would get a good "bite" through the two-inch wood into the legs and sides of the table.
We predrilled all the routes of screws with a slightly smaller diameter drill bit to avoid splitting any boards. We discovered the old wood was so soft on the surface that we could countersink all screws without a countersink bit.
The tools needed include a power drill and power saw - though a handsaw would have done fine.
We could have worked from several nice plans we found online, but we decided that since we hoped to demonstrate how one could build the table from found materials we would throw caution to the winds and "build as you go."
We first decided how tall we wanted the table (34 inches) and cut the legs to the correct length (32 inches), allowing for two more inches in height made by the tabletop boards.
We then determined the length and depth of the table, based on personal preference. After laying down boards and pretending to be working on various projects on our yet-to-be constructed tabletop, we determined that we needed the table to be about 28 1/2-inches deep and 40 inches long. I wanted a one-inch lip all around the table so that we could pick it up and move it with ease. Jim wanted a gap between the boards of the tabletop so that loose dirt would fall through or could be hosed through between the boards.
To create an inch of overhang all around, we determined that the frame around the legs would measure 38-inches long (front and back) and about 26 1/2-inches on the sides.
We constructed the frame, screwing the facing boards onto the legs. Since we didn't want to do anything so fancy as mitering the corners, we chose to have the front facing board extend over the ends of the side frame boards. (See photo). This meant that our side frame boards were only 23 1/2 inches long, allowing for the approximately 3 inches of width added by front and back board overlap.
Now for the tabletop: Since a 2" x 6" board is not actually six inches wide, we spent some time laying out our pre-cut (40-inch long) boards to determine how large a gap we wanted between boards on the tabletop. We finally chose the width of our carpenter's pencil between boards. That means we would use five boards (five and one-half inches each) for the tabletop to allow an inch of overhang front and back and a pencil's width between. Our final measurement of width on the table was 28 1/2 inches as planned.
Once the tabletop was on, Jim borrowed an idea from a painter's ladder and drilled four 1 1/2-inch diameter holes at the back of the table to hold gardener's hand tools.
A second shelf could easily be added either over or under the table and Jim and I experimented with sliding a five-gallon bucket under the table to determine where we would put an under-table shelf but decided against the shelf for this particular table.
The wood of the table has been standing outdoors as race track rails for years, but had plenty of strength and durability, despite being a bit soft on the surface. We decided to leave this table "as is" to show the rustic attractiveness, but for the best weather resistance it should be scraped and repainted with an exterior or deck paint. Simple stencil patterns or a free-hand painting of a flower would also add to the charm.
The table will be for sale at June's Local Market in Lostine with all proceeds going to the Wallowa County Fairgrounds.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, June 25, 2010
Article comment by:
Mary Lou
I have been looking for instructions on how to build a potting bench with salvaged materials, so your article is very timely. While I enjoyed the article, I am somewhat frustrated that a photo of the finished product is not included. It is difficult to become motivated & follow instructions for making something without a clear visual image of what the end result looks like.
Is a photo available?
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