UPCYCLING GARDEN GATE

The other half has hidden the remote control in a bid to stop me watching all those TV programmes encouraging upcycling or a ‘make do and mend’ mentality as it always leads to more projects that invariably take him away from re-arranging his collection of racing lanyards.

My latest greatest idea solicited a veritable symphony of eye rolls, tuts and groans so much so that I had to turn away to hide the snigger of amusement prompted by his reaction to my suggestion to upcycle the old garden gate into a wall ornament.



Darling, can we upcycle this gate?


Yeah, yeah! I can hear all that cyber tutting from where I’m typing. Recycling a metal gate? Who does that? Why don’t you just put it on the driveway and wait for the local pikeys to take it away like everyone else does. Because if you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll have gathered that I’m not really like everyone else.

When we re-modelled the front driveway and built a raised flower bed, one of the garden gates had to be taken off the wall to create better vehicular access onto the additional parking space. This rusty old gate has remained propped up against the house for the past 2 years, gathering dust, rust and an assortment of creepy crawly tenants residing under its shadow.

My idea is to chop it down to create a smaller ornate metal panel that can be hung on the wall as a decorative feature rather than send it to landfill.

The other half has rooted through his extensive collection of power tools to find an angle grinder gizmo that can cut through metal. Ooooh look! Your own personal fireworks display!



I love fireworks!

He’s managed to grind off both sides and the top section keeping the central curly bits in a rectangular shape. If we had welding tools or ironmongery skills, it would have been great to add two edging strips along each side to nicely frame the decorative design but unfortunately, we have neither so we’re making do with what’s left.



Pity we can't weld side strips onto this piece

File off any sharp edges left by the angle grinder then remove surface rust flakes with a wire brush before painting.



Prepare surface before painting

I’ve given the gate a couple of coats of black gloss metal paint to cover up the worst of the bare metal and rust patches.



Looks much better

Looks quite smart hanging on the wall and one less thing cluttering up the local landfill.



Saved from going to landfill


Note to self – need to find out how to replace or re-paint a gas meter box as this one is dirtier than an X rated porn movie!

Our plumber says you can buy replacement meter box covers from a company called Mitras if you too are looking to get a new one.