10 Brilliant DIY Suggestions for Your Garden
In need of some fresh ideas for your garden? Look no further, as we’ve prepared 10 fantastic projects for you. Our list includes a range of ideas that will bring your garden to life, from small and simple to projects that will require a bit more time and effort.
Using A Colour Palette When Decorating >
1. Wooden Pallets in Vivid Colours
It’s really easy to find cheap wooden pallets, and actually quite a few businesses give them away for free. A table made from wooden pallets is also easy to maintain and can be left in the open air all year round. The coffee table pictured below was created by placing two pallets on top of each other, with some flower pots and a decorative moss placed on top as middle ornaments.
2. Multi Purpose Workbench
You can easily increase the usefulness of your workbench and other garden items. Wooden grids can be purchased and then painted (we chose a vibrant and bright pink). Screw them onto the sides of workbenches, as pictured. You can use S-hooks and ring screws so that you can hang garden items like tools and gloves, so that all of your essential gardening equipment is handy.
3. Flaming Ornament
Add a festive atmosphere to your garden with a fire sphere. Start by finding a suitable pot-like dish that is fireproof. We used a zinc-coated iron bowl, which we painted bright yellow. Fill the bowl with pieces of tempered glass. Place a canister with non-flammable gel inside the glass pieces. Once lit, your festive flame will burn for hours!
4. A Stylish Fence
Fences are useful - fact! Even the simple fence that separates your garden from your neighbours. This idea takes the usefulness of fences a step further. These fences have been painted blue, grey and green creating a nice rustic look, but we’ve taken it a step further by using the gaps between the fencing to hang plant pots that we’ve made from plastic guttering. You can get a length of plastic guttering from your local hardware shop or builder's merchant. Cut this into 3 pieces (usually the builder's merchant can do this for you), and paint it in a colour of your choosing using spray paint. These DIY troughs are then filled with soil and plants, and attached to the fence using the existing grooves between the wooden panels.
5. Suzani Patterned Stones
These fascinating stones are bursting with colour. What you may not be able to see at first glance is that their beauty and colour does not come from paint - but fabric! Creating your own fabric covered stones is a fun and easy DIY project for the garden.
6. Stone Coffee Table
A simple yet stylish coffee table can be made with only a few materials. We created a cylinder shape using one and a half metres length of metal fencing, that is malleable enough to be pushed into a cylinder shape. We used some extra wire and pliers to fix the metal fencing in shape. Once made, place it in a suitable area of the garden where there is also some space for seating. Inside the cylinder, place 30 - 40 large stones. Make sure the cylinder is properly filled so that the stones reach the top and none are protruding. Then, place some thick and durable glass on top and your coffee table is ready.
7. From Fish Tin to Birdhouse
An old bait box from an old fishing trip can be redesigned as a birdhouse. Create a hole in the door part of the box, and file the corners with a metal file. Then, using a little glue underneath the hole you’ve just created, stick a tiny button which will look like a door knocker. Again, using a small amount of glue, you can stick metal numbers on so that your cute little birdhouse has an address. To hang, thread a rustic looking rope through the loop of the bait box and fix your new birdhouse to a solid branch.
8. Stylish Plant Bag
We’ve turned a cloth sack and cardboard box into a tiny garden with tomatoes and other plants inside! For this simple and effortless project, you’ll firstly need to unstitch the seams of the sack, and re-stitch them so they can be wrapped around the box. Then, place the box in the sack and curl the remaining parts of the sack over the edges and inside the box, and stick it to the inside and bottom of the box. Put a plastic bin liner inside the box to protect the sack, and then finally place whichever plants you want in your stylish new decorative sack.
9. A Modern Family Table
Although this may look like an expensive product, this cedar table was made entirely from materials that are readily available at builders merchants. Two 60cm chimney pipes were placed on top of two 10cm thick concrete slabs, so that the table is the right height to comfortably sit and eat. The rest of the table is made from rot-proof cedar boards. The wooden table surface was created by lining up 5 x 10 inch blocks and 10 x 10 blocks, and leaving half an inch in between them. (We designed our table to be 2.5 metres long, and 1.5m wide, but you can make yours whatever side you want.) For the support planks placed under the table, we used 5 x 10 inch boards that were shorter than the width of the table. The supports are positioned so that they’re equidistant from each other, bearing in mind that the chimney pipes will be in between them (we used 5 support planks.) Screw the supports to the table top and then place top of the chimney pipes.
10. Cottage Designed for Your Place
We’re sure most of us probably don’t have the thought of building our own house ourselves, from scratch… but if we start small, like this idea for building a garden hut, then it’s definitely a start! Especially if your hut is as detailed and stylish as the one pictured. We designed this hut as 1.5 metres by 2.5 metres, using standard 2.5 meter sheets. We used zinc coated nails to be durable and other water-resistant materials to prevent rotting and rusting. Of course, you can create your own hut in whichever colour you want - it’s yours after all!
Source: BHG.com
