How to Build a Planter Box: Phase 1: Collecting Supplies, Cutting the Wood, and Painting

I am so excited about fall.  We finally have a home with a front porch perfect for decorating.  I have definitely been slacking on decorating it for the seasons but fall is my favorite time to decorate.

I love traditional Halloween decorations but I preferred to do a more neutral décor that can last all through fall.   I also wanted to make sure my own personal style was incorporated into my fall porch decorations so I wanted to add some pops of color that were not traditional with fall and create one major element that was homemade.

I decided to make these front porch planters.

Here are the supplies I used for the planters:

• 2 4×4 Plywood Boards
• 7  8ft common boards for the frame(I had left over wood to make the slats and lip)
• Woodglue
• Vice Clamps
• Wood Stain (Ipswich)
• Exterior Clear Gloss
• 1.5 in Wood screws
• 1in Wood screws
• Drill(Drill Bits)
• Behr paint (Shadow Mountain and Mirror Lake)

Cutting the Frame and Wood Panels

I cut the Plywood Boards into 36in long and 12in wide panels.  I cut the common boards into 38in length pieces for the frame.  This gave me 8 side panels and 16 common board pieces to make the frame

Painted All the Cut Pieces

I painted the 16 common board pieces the dark grey(Behr Shadow Mountain). I stained the panels with the wood stain

Make the Frame

I combined two of the common boards to create the corners for the planters.  I used wood glue and then secured them with screws on the tops and bottoms.  I repeated this step to create all 8 corner frames for both the planters.

See the next section How To Build a Planter Box: Phase 2: Assembling The Planters