Outdoor Grill Makover

I have an old gas grill that works perfectly well, but looked awful. The weather-worn wood slats and handle were either missing or damaged (possibly chewed on by a dog or two). Instead of replacing the grill, I decided to fix it up! This is what it looks like now; I wish I would have taken "before" pictures, but I didn't so you will have to trust me when I say it looked bad!

I began by disassembling the grill (I had a terrible time figuring out how to get the burners out) and cleaning it with degreaser (on the inside) and a power washer (both inside and outside). After the grill dried I spray painted the base with primer then with bright green! The actual grill part was spray painted with a specialty heat resistant paint made specifically for grills.

The handle to open the grill is made from a large dowel. To attach it, I ended up using plumbing nipples as spacers (who came up with that name?) after searching the entire hardware store for tiny pipes.

The side table slats were cut to size and attached to the base with screws and plastic anchors. I am really happy about how it turned out except for this one thing that just happened:

Last week, I bought a grill cover too keep it looking nice. When I took it off to take pictures over the weekend it was sort of stuck to the grill. The cover left its waffle print on the grill wherever they were touching (it is a bit sticky in those areas too). I am not sure why it happened, the grill was painted weeks before I bought the cover so it should have had plenty of time to dry. Oh well.