The Three Rs

Reduce – Recycle – Reuse
The previous owners of Quirky Cottage left a few pieces of furniture behind when they moved. We placed an ad on our local Freecycle site and quickly found new homes for them all. But I kept the patio table, rust and all, for a “some day” project.

In addition, many times over the past 7 or 8 years I’ve had an old patio table sun umbrella ready to send to the landfill just because I didn’t know what else to do with it and it had out-lived its welcome at my house. The cover was torn, faded and dirty. Some of the ribs were bent and long ago the stand that came with it had broken beyond repair and was tossed away.

A few weeks ago, while shopping at a Fred Myer’s, I saw some cloth-backed vinyl table cloths in red, yellow and green checks. The green one called to me and I put a round one in my shopping basket. And then I saw a vision of what could be and I bought four rectangle table cloths of the same kind and color.

After taking apart the table and spray painting it green, I scrubbed the glass top until it shined and put it all back together again.

I pried off the old umbrella cover (surprising how stubborn the thing was when most of it was already hanging lose) and using one of the panels as a pattern I cut 8 pieces out of the rectangles and sewed them together.

I was so paranoid that I would cut them too small that I gave myself way too much seam allowance and so the panels sag a bit. I’m assuming it won’t last more than a year anyway but if it should still look good next spring I’ll take it off and make it a little tighter.

So I proudly present my Recycled – Reused patio table and sun umbrella that cost less than $30. Oh, and to stabilize the bottom of the umbrella I used an old Christmas tree stand.

Mrs.RGS