Garden Drinks Cooler

Is there anything better than a nice cold drink in the summer?

I wanted something which could keep our drinks cold during our family BBQs without taking up the space in the fridge, which was needed for the food!

Having seen a cool box on wheels I thought it would be great to make something similar and I saw loads of great examples on Pinterest and google.

• Big pile of pallet wood
• 'Some' 2.4m lengths of 90mmx 38mm timber
• Clear outdoor varnish
• Cuprinol Pale Jasmine paint
• Assorted screws and nails
• Threaded inserts
• Heavy duty castor wheels
• Hinges, handle, bottle opener, towel hanger
• and of course, a cool box!

Tools:

• Mitre/chop saw
• Drill/Screwdriver
• Kreg Pocket hold jig
• Sander
• Tape Measure and pencil
• Paintbrushes

My first job was to find a suitable cool box. As this only needed to keep drinks cold for a few hours I didnt need a leaing brand expensive cool box, this one only cost about £30 brand new.

I planned to build the cool box lid into a hinged lid so I needed to remove the hinges and handles from the cool box. Once removed I filled in the holes with some clear silicone.

Next step was to build the 4 legs, I wanted these to be quite sturdy so I joined two pieces of 90mm x 38mm timber together with pocket screws and glue.

Time to make a frame to hold the cool box and then add the legs.

I used the cool box to guide me on the dimensions. Once the top and bottom frames were assembled attached the legs and gave the whole frame a quick sanding and a few coats of Cuprinol Pale Jasmine outdoor paint.

I wanted a rustic look to the cooler so I decided to strip some pallets and clad the frame in some sanded pieces of pallet wood.

The same pallet wood was used to create the shelf inside the cubby and the edging around the top.

Once the pallet wood was all fixed in place I gave it a couple of coats of clear outdoor varnish to give it a nice shine.

As a personal touch I also printed off a Thatchers Old Rasal logo and put it on the front of the cooler before coating in varnish to protect it.

Now I needed to fix the lid in place.

After putting the cool box in its place I put the lid on and built a wooden frame around it before screwing the frame to the lid itself and giving it a couple of coats fo varnish. The lid was then held in place with a couple of zinc plated hinges and a matching handle was screwed to the front.

At this point the cooler was quite heavy and would need a couple of people to move it when it was empty, once full it wasn't likely that it could be moved.

I decided to get some casters with a heavy weight rating, to fix these in place I drilled a hole in the bottom of each leg and used some threaded inserts to enable me to adjust the height of each wheel to level the table out if needed.

For a few finishing touches I used a spare floor tile for the side table part, put a towel holder hook on and the all important bottle opened!

I havent included any dimensions as this all depends on what cool box you have and if you want a side table or not.

This project was well worth it and was a big talking point at many family BBQs.