DIY Outdoor Bar Cart

In the Outdoor Makeover Challenge reveal, I promised to share with you how I made our DIY bar cart! It's the perfect addition to our patio, adding a little pop of color and providing a place to put snacks, beverages, or dishes while entertaining guests. When there are no visitors, it's a great place to keep pretty planters! I'm so excited to share the details with you today!

A few years ago, I was living in a basement apartment without a lot of storage, so I was a frequent flyer at The Container Store in my attempt to create organization in my tiny little space. On one of those many trips, I purchased this laundry sorter...

Unfortunately, it didn't last very long because one of my cats thought inside of the laundry bags was a good place to sleep, so eventually the seams ripped apart and the bag was destroyed. With the $60 price tag, I didn't throw the cart away right away in hopes that I could repurpose it somehow. Years later... still sitting in the garage!

When Kristi from making it in the mountains asked me if I wanted to participate in an outdoor makeover challenge, I knew I wanted to find or create a bar cart for the patio. We have a lot of scrap wood in the garage, so I was digging through it one day to see if there were any usable pieces for a table top and I spotted this cart out of the corner of my eye. Perfect!!

After dusting it off, I gave it a coat of navy blue spray paint (Rustoleum's navy blue) to match the rest of our patio decor.

After building our window box, I decided to use that leftover wood to create the tabletop for the bar. Using those planks would allow me to achieve a look at least kind of similar to the table we bought from Ikea. The cedar fence pickets are only $1.64 a piece!

We cut them to size and gave them several coats of primer. The primer was free because the previous homeowners lefts tons of paint and primer in the basement!

Then we created a frame out of 1 x 2's we had laying around the garage and primed it. (We ended up making a second frame at the last minute to accommodate the size of the bottle opener.)

We laid the cedar planks across the top of the frame and carefully nailed them into the frame. Then I coated the whole thing with grey spray paint. I used Rustoleum's "stone grey." (When we later added the second frame to the bottom, we just used wood glue to hold it together).

To get the weathered look, I used a light grey acrylic paint and the dry-brushing technique. To dry brush, you dip the very tip of your paint brush into paint and brush off the excess. You want the brush to be barely wet. Then you make streaks up and down in the direction of the wood grain for a more natural look. Easy as that!

Dry brushing really brought out the texture of this wood! I love how it turned out! Then came the easy part. I set my newly constructed tabletop on top of the painted laundry cart! I actually  bought something to screw them together but decided against it so that I could easily take it apart for storage during big storms if needed. The top is heavy enough that it doesn't move, but I can always attach it later if it becomes a problem. I painted the bottle opener I purchased from Amazon with acrylic paint and used a drill to attach it on one side of the cart.

I did the same thing with this hook that can hold a hand towel or tongs for an ice bucket.

Once everything was installed, I gave the whole thing a coat of Rustoleum's sealant to protect it from the sun and then had lots of fun picking out accessories to go on top of it :)

I'm so happy to see the transformation that little laundry cart had!! What would you have turned it into to?

Check out the rest of my outdoor makeover:

The Big Reveal // DIY outdoor pillows // Window boxes // Painted bird feeder // Updated windchime

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