How I repurposed my original pallet bar project to create a plant bar..!

_{Some items have been gifted}

I’ve got something I want to admit to you all. The pallet bar is gone.

Well, it hasn’t gone gone – it’s just been repurposed this summer, and for good reason. I’ve decided that growing veg is more important than having an alfresco G&T, so I’ve given over my much-loved pallet bar to create a nursery space for my seedlings. The pallet bar is on the sunniest wall in the garden and provides plenty of space for laying out my trays and pots during the day.

The bar is still the same as it ever was – in fact it’s a bit better because it’s had a fresh coat of paint. After 18 months in the garden the chalkboard paint was looking a little worse for wear and needed a quick tidy up.

Firstly, we unhooked it from the wall and assessed the condition. The old paint was flaking off a little so I scrubbed it off with a wire brush to smooth down the surface. A few boards needed a couple of extra nails to keep them firmly attached to the frame so we made this repair at the same time.

I was super-excited to give the pallet bar a fresh layer of ‘black oak’ garden paint. In fact, I very nearly skipped the scraping and repairing steps because I was so keen to slap on that paint and refresh the look of the pallet bar! I was careful not to paint over the copper interior as I like how this looks and the paint hasn’t faded. And, after all, it might go back to being a bar once the seedlings have grown!

We also added a little extra signage on top of the original light-up BAR sign and hung it back on the wall. We piled on the plants so that they can benefit from the lovely sunny spot in our garden while they’re growing – all of these tomato plants, peppers, courgettes and beans were grown from seed.

I’ve added hooks to the sides of the pallet bar to attach my hanging terracotta planters (how cute are these cat and eyelash designs?) and provide more space for growing plants.

I’ve discovered that the bottle holders we cut into the original pallet bar using a hole saw are just the right size to hold plant pots and the fold-down surface is ideal for trays of growing seeds. We keep the seeds on a windowsill above a radiator (as recommended by Gardeners’ World!) overnight and then, on sunny days, we bring the trays outside to enjoy the warmth and light.

I think that terracotta pots work perfectly with the copper interior of the pallet bar so I’ve added some low-cost ones that I bought from Wilko last year, as well as a couple of stumpy planters that I was kindly gifted from Red Candy. I couldn’t resist these cute little eyes!

We’ve also made-do with any pots and tubs we had in our recycling bin – punnets and trays are ideal for growing seedlings. And when the plants get a bit bigger they get moved onto halved plastic milk bottles, toilet roll tubes and even tins with drainage holes pierced into the bottom!

Luckily we’ve only had a handful of seeds fail – one bean, and a sprinkling of cherry tomatoes. Everything else has come up beautifully and I am so excited to be able to plant them outside soon.

If you want to have a go at making this for yourself here’s the link to the original pallet bar project on my blog. Let me know what you’re growing in your garden in the comments below. Also, I’d love to see photos of your own pallet bar projects so please do get in touch if you’d like to share some pics!

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Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂