This year I decided to make my wife a planter box for our front porch because she’s become borderline obsessed with geraniums and pansies and there’s only so much space we can have baskets hanging for flowers.

Also, who doesn’t love a great excuse to flex the woodworking muscle?!

Lessons Learned

  1. I want to hide the bottom slats inside the box itself instead of a true bottom. This will require horizontal cross-beams to lay slats on and be a lot more work, but I think it will look cleaner.
  2. I really need a table saw so I can cut proper angles and seams. I could have done a lot more with this if I had a table saw.
  3. Treated red cedar is messy; nearly stained my hands orange before I realized I should be using gloves.
  4. There’s a lot more volume in this than two large bags of potting soil! Should have had the kids do a math problem for us.

What I Love About This

  1. Cedar. You can’t go wrong.
  2. The dimensions fit perfectly. 8ft x 2ft x 1ft
  3. This was simple enough I managed to get it done between meetings during the week once we were able to get everything from the hardware/lumber store.