Outdoor Chess Set

The other day while I was watching HGTV, there was a quick tutorial on how to make a "Outside chess set". It was a huge life size chess set that involved lots of grass squares, concrete, and ginormous chess pieces... I thought it was super cool, but Mr. Husband would never let me rip up our back yard. So I thought I would try and make one to put in our front porch on top of a table, so it could turn in to a "chess table" : )

For the base, I ended up using a board that was for magnetic scrapbook stuff, and it worked perfect!!!

I grabbed some wood from Home depot, glued the sides together, and then glued the frame to the board itself...

To make it match our outside decor, I spray painted the board white and added some decorative trim on the top.

I then grabbed a square sheet of travertine tile at Home Depot for half of the squares. It was the absolute perfect size!

I then found this moss at Michaels... I loved that it was so vibrant. I really wanted to use real grass at first, but Mr. Husband said absolutely not :) I had no idea that they made moss in sheets and it was the exact look I was going for...

I filled the base with potting soil, and then it was time to "checker board" away!!

After I was done, I placed it on a small wrought iron table that was already out front, and here's how it turned out :)

I also found a super cheap chess set at Target and spray painted the pieces brown and white, but we don' t keep them outside because it can get pretty windy. I imagined that we would go out in the front every weekend and play chess while we drank yummy coffee in the mornings, but that has yet to happen :(

At least it's fun to look at!!