Transform Your Ugly, Old Trash Can

This is the exact one I have (and have probably had for 10+ years).

To update it I used:

•Hot glue gun

•Jute rope

•Macrame cord

I started gluing under the lip at the top so you don’t see end of the rope. I put a thin bead of hot glue about 1/3 of the way around the top and carefully glued the rope down. I made sure not to overdo it with the glue so that it didn’t seep out from under the rope and burn my fingers. You could absolutely use something to press it down into the glue or wear gloves to be safe. I didn’t have any issues but I might have just gotten lucky!

I continued the bead of glue around the whole top. I wanted the first wrap around the trash can to be nice and secure, so I made sure that every part of the rope was glued down.

As I continued, I was able to use less glue. The photo above shows how I would put short a line of glue about 1 to 1 1/2 inches long then skip a few inches and repeat. As you glue the rope down, pull it taut and press it up as close to the piece above it as you can so there aren’t any gaps between the “rows” of rope.

I continued this a little over halfway down the trash can and switched to using macrame cord. I thought the two different types would give it a little more interest.

I repeated the process until I got to the bottom of the trash can. I decided to add a little of the macrame cord around the lip at the top so that it was covered as well.

There are lots of ways you could tweak this to fit your style! They make several colors of macrame cord and both the cord and the jute rope come in basically any width you could want. Of course, the thinner the material the more times you’ll have to go around the trash can, so this would take more time. For reference, the jute I used was probably about 4mm in width and the cord was 5 or 6mm I think. I used them both previously to make plant hangers so I already had them at the house!

I did this about a year ago and it’s in perfect shape! Maybe if I stopped eating snacks in bed I wouldn’t even need a trash can in the bedroom but I’ll worry about that another time 🤣 For now at least I have a cute trash can when I need it!