I was on vacation from my full-time job last week so we spent some time in Cape May, NJ.  My favorite place EVER.  We celebrated Ryan’s birthday, enjoyed seemingly endless days on the beach and also managed to catch up on some projects around the house.  

Ryan got a delightful bird house for his birthday after having his eye on it for years.  It seems more like a bird mansion to me.  Too bad I didn’t get a before shot of the bird house because he really transformed it by staining it to match the screened-in deck.  Then he mounted it on a tree stump so it peaks out from all of the foliage in the yard.  Birds have already flocked to it.

As for my project…Remember this funky green cage?  (I have been on a green junkin’ kick lately, haven’t I?)

I picked it up earlier this summer at Renninger’s.  When I bought it, I had a big idea for it.  The plan was to transform the cage into something useful and practical.  How about a coffee table? 

At Renninger’s, I also got ahh-mazing antique wooden casters.  They’re pretty fab, aren’t they?  Ryan popped the casters in the bottom of the cage for me after I cleaned it up. 

At this point, it looked something like a mobile rabbit home.  But stick with me.  I’m going somewhere with this transformation.

Next, I ordered a piece of custom cut glass for the top.  Ryan fixed up any wayward wires that were poking out haphazardly.  We put it all together and had ourselves a rustic little coffee table after just a few steps and a lot of imagination.  It is just the right height and size. 

The inside serves as a magazine rack and houses other fishing and beachy decor.  I love how the little door on the right pops open so you can use the inside for storage and display.  Maybe I will change it seasonally.

What do you think?  Have I gone too far?

I was originally thinking of doing this with an old lobster trap to stick with the beachy theme but each one that I found was just too far gone and corroded from the salt water.  When I came across this green cage I thought, why not?  Plus we like the color for the rustic beach house! 

Any ideas as to what the cage might have been originally used for?  I don’t know what the original purpose was but we almost had a reason to use the table as a cage on the other night…

Friday came along and we decided to break in the new-to-us table with a competitive game of scrabble.  I know, I know.  Big Friday night for us!  Scrabble. Woo hoo!

The table was working out just fine when we heard rustling outside in the shrubs.  Sure enough there was an INTRUDER! 

The kind of intruder that has four legs!  Yikes!  Can you believe that this thief was robbing the new bird house of all of the bird seed?  At one point, he had a friend too.  Yes, two raccoons visited us!  We spent the evening chasing the raccoons out of the new bird mansion in between scrabble tiles.  And by “we”, I mean Ryan did the chasing while I took pictures of the rodents feasting. 

Wilson slept through the whole thing.  Some guard dog he is. 

This would have probably been a good opportunity for us to use the cage-turned-table as an actual cage as it was once intended.  Fortunately, we Ryan scared the intruders away without needing to capture them. 

And I won the scrabble game!

Linking to:
The Lettered Cottage
Mod Vintage Life
House of Grace
Primitive & Proper
Southern Hospitality
A Beach Cottage
Between Naps on the Porch
House of Hepworths
Beyond the Picket Fence
Miss Mustard Seed