DIY Planter Box

A few months back I came across a few wood pallets, why wood pallets? If you have not come across the wood pallet craze just go to the wonderful land of Pinterest and type in pallet and welcome to my world of madness. The possibilities are endless!!

My new toys!

Over the past few months I also acquired a few new toys for my projects!! I introduce to you my, Miter Saw, Orbital Sander and a Nail Gun :) put these together with some fresh pallet wood and my wheels started turning. One idea came from a Pinterest post like this one here, of course this one has already finished pieces of wood that you simply cut down to size and follow the instructions to make a very Chic Planter Box.

I had to take pallet wood and cut it down
to fit planters like this.

I figured I had so much spare wood plus, I know how to cut wood, I know how to sand wood, I know how to stain and paint – how hard could this be? I wish I could tell you this is a step by step “How to” post to make my planter box but it’s not. Although I’ll show you a bit of my process along the way, truth is I had always worked on projects with someone by my side, my brother and my husband normally doing the “harder cuts” for me and me doing a little here and there. This time I was bound and determined to make this box by myself.

The transformation

My first challenge was cutting planks of wood down to size using my Miter Saw to do the dirty work, the Miter saw is more commonly used to cut across wood or to take a piece of wood down in length, not to cut down the width of a piece of wood. I walked away from this project a couple of time during this process. I was frustrated with how hard it was to get clean cuts, eventually I came back to it and cut what felt like a million little pieces. Afterwards the rest was a little easier, sanding and staining was much more fun.

I decided to stain all the wood pieces first, then assemble the box it's self.  I dry brushed an antique white over the stain to get it an aged weathered look. I added some handles and stenciled letters as the finishing touches. The final product came out beautiful!

Although my cuts were rough and sometimes uneven, in the end it gave my box a natural aged look. Overall the project was a learning experience, making so many cuts lead to getting to know my Miter Saw really well. I've completed a few more projects since then and I think I've got the hang of it now!

Rough Draft and Plans: