Old Drawers into Porch Planters

Old Drawers into Porch Planters

This project makes me super happy, and I am so glad I get to see them on my porch every day! Let me show you how you can turn your own repurposed drawers into planters.

I started with these cute drawers I picked up on our city’s clean up day for free. I had been wanting to do some type of planter for my front porch and these already had a cute color on the front. The spindles were $1 at the Restore, I have had them for quite a while.

Using scrap wood, I cut apron pieces to fit the bottom of the drawer and drilled pocket holes (with Kreg Jig) on each end. Here I am attaching the short sides first.

I got busy and forgot to take more pictures, but you can see I was building a frame or base. I did both short sides first and then attached them together with the long apron pieces. I used Gorilla wood glue before I screwed them together.

Here I am dry fitting the base for the shorter planter. I used scrap wood for this, you can see one part had holes drilled in it, I had to fill them in.

After the bases were built I tried the drawers on top and they fit! Now to make a shelf for the bottom…

I had these pieces of wood left over from my Master closet drawer fronts. They were perfect for slats. I taped them together and cut them all at once. The two ends needed to be shortened so I cut them with my jigsaw.

For the short planter I used free 5 gallon paint sticks from the Home Depot, that I had on hand. Then I glued and nailed them onto the bases with my New Ryobi Air Strike Nail Gun!! I got it for Mother’s day! Best. Gift. Ever.

After looking at them together I was sad I didn’t make the shorter one a little taller, oh well. To help it out I gave it some feet using my Gorilla Super glue. The feet are wooden drawer knobs.

To finish I stapled he drawers to the bases, and then drilled some holes for draining.

*Update 9-27-17, For a longer life span of your drawer planters I suggest replacing the bottom of your drawer wood with cedar, or at least reinforcing it with cedar underneath. If you add a liner before you add soil they will last longer, but given the nature of the drawer bottoms in a normal drawer they won’t last forever! The bottoms on these drawers lasted about 2 1/2 years before I needed to replace them!

The drawer fronts were taped off so I could spray paint the bottoms in Rustoleum’s Satin Green Apple. I sprayed them upside down first then right side up. It took one can, and was SO much faster than painting by hand!

Make sure to add a liner to your drawers before adding soil and plants!

Here they are ready for flowers…

And I think I am in love! I can’t tell you how excited I am to have these on my porch!

They are sure to brighten anyone’s day.

I love that I could use the bottom shelves for plants as well.

For the bottom shelf on the tall planter I used my tapered crate that I made.

I didn’t have anything that fit on the small planter so I made this little wooden planter on the bottom in less than 10 minutes (thanks to my new nail gun) and it is perfect!

That is it! A fun way to repurpose your old drawers! Have you done any drawer repurposing?

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Original article and pictures take www.myrepurposedlife.com site