Old Chest Turned Flower Box

I found this old wooden chest at a thrift store and thought I could definitely transform it into something new. The lid was partially broken so I decided to remove it and not use the lid at all. After removing the lid, I decided to remove the front wood detail as well so that it would look less like a treasure chest.

After removing the wood trim, I needed to repair a few spots on the chest where there were deep scratches and dents. I decided to use nail hole filler which I already had on hand. I applied this to the scratches and allowed it to dry for 4 hours and then I lightly sanded all the spots that had the filler.

The next step was to paint the chest a new color. I first covered all the metal details with painters tape to protect them. Then I spray painted the entire chest a creamy white chalk paint that I had left over from a past project. It took several coats. If I did this project over, I would have sprayed the chest with a primer first so that it wouldn't have taken so many coats of the cream paint.

Once the paint was totally dry, I predrilled holes in the bottom four corners of the chest where I planned to attach legs.

For the legs, I purchased a 48" long, 1" wide wooden dowel from the hardware store and I used our miter saw to cut the dowel down into four 12" pieces for four legs.

I used 1" wood screws and drilled the screws through the predrilled holes I had made and into the bottom of the dowel until the dowel was completely tightened against the bottom corner of the chest.

I painted all four legs a charcoal gray paint to give them some contrast. The final step was to fill the chest with potting soil and to add some colorful flowers. I used a variety of pink and purple flowers for a nice pop of color.

This was a fun and easy project to give new life to an old thrifted chest. The flower planter works perfectly on my front porch and is perfect for the start of spring!