Vintage French Chair Planter

by Doreen Cagno

Here's how I transformed a forlorn French chair into a planter for my front porch. I found this chair at a local auction. The chair was in pretty bad shape with cracks in the frame and loose legs, but look at the pretty open-back French frame! I won the bid at under $10! the frame and loose legs so I could reupholster the seat.The longer I looked at it in the garage, the more I decided that I wasn't up to reupholstering this old girl (at least not right now)! But, I did think of a way to make it pretty for summer!

vintage french chair planter, flowers, gardening, repurposing upcycling

My plan was to fix the frame and loose legs and then reupholster the seat. But, the longer I looked at it in the garage, the more I decided that I wasn't up to reupholstering this old girl (at least not right now)! But, I did think of a way to make it pretty for summer!

Here's what we did: First all of the worn and torn upholstery, horsehair, rusty springs, burlap, etc, was ripped off. When I say - ripped off, you can see that's pretty much what we did! Then Mark used 1 x 1 pieces of wood to make a ledge so my galvanized tub would fit inside the open chair seat.

Here's a peek at the tub sitting inside the chair seat. I literally had to lift the petunias up so I could snap this picture! Some of you commented on yesterday's post about how lush the petunias are already - well, I have a secret. . . I bought them that way!

Last week I was driving down a country road and saw gorgeous hanging baskets at one of these roadside markets. I stopped and asked how much they were - $14.99! I picked out the one I liked and it would barely fit in the trunk of my car it was soooo large! It measured 3 feet across! I actually removed about half of it and cut some of the flowers back because it was too large for the chair!

I wish I could say that I'm a master gardener and grew those petunias from seed and watched them patiently grow to be so lush - but the hard-working Amish lady gets all the credit! To see more of my Country French Front Porch - stop by my blog!