What did you do for the holiday?

This is a little belated, but the Boy and I made a great wall feature over the 4th weekend.  It was the first project of it’s kind we’d taken on, and with new Ryobi circular saw in hand, we embarked upon a great adventure!

The Bamboo Flower Box Wall Art Feature!  Now with lights!

It is admittedly not a new idea; I pulled it from a show on HGTV, but the construction and application were all us.  The main component was the bamboo, which I happened to find a HUGE deal of at the Arc a few weeks beforehand, on a SUPER DUPER SALE. These reeds can be found typically at your local crafting/decor store.  We needed to make a long, thin box to hold the bamboo with, and since there was nothing available in the size we wanted, we decided to make it ourselves! Our trip to Home Depot brought us to the 'remnants' section of lumber, where we purchased four pieces of lumber for... $0.50 each! So just $2 for our lumber! Also, the reeds were on sale for $1 a package (we used about three… I still have three more left! 
 
Before we went shopping for our box-making supplies, we made some cursory sketches based on our measurements of the wall and the area where we wanted the feature to be (it’s next to our dining table).  We wanted it to be about 3 feet (the height of the reeds) by 4 feet, but very shallow, as to not take away space from the room.  And it IS intended to be a wall feature, of course.

We made the box with pine and poplar, and we discovered that poplar does not take well to screws, and tends to split.  In the future we’ll stick with pine! Construction was done with #6 1.25 inch wood screws and wood glue. The finished dimensions of the box are 3x3.5x48, open at the top.

We also picked up the Ryobi set of cordless drill and circular saw, which was invaluable. I was going to ask for one for Christmas... XD But Boy decided we might as well have it now! It came in VERY handy indeed!  As you can see, we worked outside on our patio (we live in a townhome and have no backyard!) on my bulky fold up table, and we had a lot of success.  I was definitely concerned about our lack of outside space, but our small front yard and patio worked fine (pardon my dead plants ;_; Gardening is not yet a skill I have).

We painted with Krylon dark brown spray paint to contrast the blonde bamboo and coordinate a little more with the dining furniture. Just about two coats did it! A 1.5" hole was drilled in the bottom for the string of lights.  We put about an inch and a half of floral foam in the bottom to help stabilize the bamboo, and then set them in place. It was finished off with a layer of river pebbles from Hobby Lobby (about one and a half bags at $3 each). 

Et voila! Also it glows in the dark! XD We need to tack down the rope light a little, but otherwise not bad. So how did your holiday weekend projects go?

Tags: decor, DiY, decorating, frugality, wall art