This Under-$30 IKEA Hack Will Make You Want to Start a Garden ASAP

Sarah EverettHome Projects Editor
Sarah EverettHome Projects Editor
I organize the Before & After series and cover DIY and design. I joined AT in October 2020 as a production assistant. I have an MA in Journalism from the University of Missouri and a BA in Journalism from Belmont University. Past editorial stops include HGTV Magazine, Nashville Arts Magazine, and local magazines in my hometown, Columbia, Missouri.
published May 27, 2025
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Potting table with gardening supplies

‘Tis the season for gardening! If you’re a pro gardener, you might have a full-fledged potting station for planting, trimming, propagating plant babies, and more. A potting station setup can be as simple as a small rolling cart where you keep your spray bottle, scissors, succulents, and more, or it could be an elaborate, custom-made bench. 

Here, DIYer Annika Hinds (@annikamarieee) made a potting station that falls somewhere in the middle. Yes, she had a workbench in her shed already, but she used some common household items to convert the tabletop into a waterproof, dirt-proof place to give her potted plants some TLC. 

This potting table has an IKEA hack hidden within it.

The right side of the workbench was already starting to buckle, Annika says on Instagram, so she tore it off (in an impressively straight line), perfected the edges, dusted, and added a slatted cover over top. That slatted cover is made from an IKEA dish rack that she found in her basement; she disassembled it and laid it flat over top of the table opening. 

(Note: IKEA doesn’t sell this kind of dish rack anymore, but you can find a similar one from Amazon or At Home.)

She also used a plastic drawer that fit in the table opening, perfect for catching the dirt that falls through the wood slats. “To attach it, I just drilled holes in all four corners and then I hooked them onto nails on the framing underneath the counter,” Annika says on Instagram. “And of course, I had to paint [the drawer] pink.” 

Annika used items she already had at home, so her project was free. But you probably could create a similar setup for $30 or less, depending on where you source your dish rack and drawers from. 

Even if you don’t have a work bench to use as a base, you could steal Annika’s clever hack for sorting seed packets, which she shows at the end of her IG Reel. She used the leftover slatted material from her drying rack to create a seed packet organizer. So cute! 

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