Wine Crate Planter Box

Instructions from the Blogger

1. The first step was deconstructing it. It was held together with lightweight nails and staples. It was just a matter of hammering from the inside of the box toward the head of the nail, which easily forced the pieces apart without ripping the wood. (Don’t you just love that hammer? Isn’t it a happy hammer?!)

2. I took off the bottom off of the box; I knew it would get wet with watering the plants and figured the whole thing would last longer if there wasn’t a horizontal plane for the water to settle in. I hammered down on the bottom and used a screw driver to pry the bottom from the sides.

3. Depending on the size you want your planter, just taking the bottom and top off may be all you have to do. I did need to cut just a wee bit off of the sides and wanted to change the front out.

4. The original box did not have design on the front of the box; instead the lid had all the designs. Since I didn’t need the lid, I decided to just cut the lid and use it as the front of the box. We used a jig saw to cut it so that I had a pattern on both of the long sides of the box.

5. Then it was just a matter of nailing the box back together.

6. Once it was rebuilt, I gave it three coats of polyurethane. I know that even with the polyurethane and being under the porch roof, the planter won’t withstand the elements indefinitely. I’ll be happy if I get a couple of seasons out of it. (And I still have another box of the same dimensions in the attic!)

7. Once the planter was built, finding shallow pots proved to be more challenging than rebuilding the box.

8. I was at Home Depot when I had my second brainstorm! Instead of several pots (which I couldn’t find anyway), I would use a long narrow plastic box as the container for the plants.

9. I did cut off about an inch of height off of the plastic box with a jigsaw, just enough so that it wouldn’t rise above the wooden box.

10. I drilled holes for drainage and then planted my flowers in the plastic box, using the lid as the tray to catch the water.