Easy DIY Tall Wood Planter with Plans
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Spruce up your front porch with easy DIY projects this summer! Learn how to make these easy tall wood planter boxes for your outdoor space with basic tools. I’m always looking for easy outdoor projects for the season and there’s nothing that makes your front door pop, like beautiful new planters.
Unfortunately, buying tall wood planters can be expensive. I made my own modern design wooden planters with basic power tools and I’ll share my building plans with you! The best part is, you don’t need a pocket hole jig or circular saw for this easy tutorial. The plan is very flexible and you can use any wood you like whether it’s leftover pallet wood or cedar fence pickets.
Honestly, if you have a little bit of practice and the right power tools, you can do a great deal of outdoor projects right at home. I suggest mixing in a few different heights when decorating your front door – mix some smaller planters with taller planters to get instant curb appeal.
Before You Begin
Before you head out to Home Depot, figure out how tall you want your entire planter to be. This will determine the size of your cuts. This blog post is for two, approximately 20″ tall outdoor planters which cost me less than $30 each to make. You can stick to the total height mentioned here or you can choose a different height for your tall planter box. I made a slat board base for the bottom of the planter instead of adding drainage holes. This way I can drop in planters inserts instead of directly adding soil to them.
I recommend making all your straight cuts before you begin assembling the planters. I did not screw the separate pieces with pocket hole screws or even regular screws. I just used wood glue and a brad nail gun to attach everything together.
Materials Needed
- 1x4x8′ Select Pine boards x 4
- 1x2x8′ Select Pine boards x 4
- Wood Glue
- Spray Paint/Wood Stain
- Brad Nails
- Wood Filler
Decorative Onlay
Tools Needed
Cut List
1x4s cut at 13″ x 12 - 1x2s cut at 20″ x 8
- 4 additional trim pieces to be cut later to exact size
How to Make Tall Wood Planter
Assemble legs
The first thing you’re going to do is to make 4 legs for each planter. Lay out the two, 1×2 pieces as shown in this picture and use brad nails and wood glue to attach. Repeat the process until you have 4 sets of legs.
Make the sides of the planter
Lay down two legs on a flat surface and grab the first board (1×4″) to make the first side. Use the brad nailer to attach the first slat starting from the top and work your way to the bottom slat. Do not leave gaps between each board. I added four 1×4″ boards to make the sides of the planter. Repeat this process until you have two sides of the planter.
Next, place the two sides of the planter next to each other, approximately 13″ apart. Start nailing in more 1×4″ boards to join one side to the opposite side. Flip the planter over and repeat the process to finish attaching all sides.
Nail in Trim
Stand the planter up and cut 1×2″ boards to fit the top of the planter box. Adding trim to the top is a perfect way to give it a finished look. You can do miter cuts at a 45 degree angle if you like but I just did straight cuts for the trim to keep it simple.
Measure the inside of the planter box and cut some additional 1×2″ boards. We will make a base for the bottom of the pots to sit on. I just nailed the 1×2 boards from the outside to secure them.
Attach Decorative Applique
This is a new idea I haven’t really seen being done for DIY planter boxes. To give my affordable tall planters a custom, high-end look, I glued on a decorative onlay on the front side. Plain old wood glue will work just fine to attach these. If you want extra security you can shoot some nails in as well. If you want to use heavy duty planter inserts I recommend you drill pocket holes and use pocket screws to secure the base. I plan on using faux small trees in mine so I’m not worried about them being too heavy for the planters.
Prep and Paint
Your planters are done! Now it’s time to fill in the nail holes with wood filler and prep for paint. You could do a couple of coats of paint in any color you like. I used Rustoleum’s Custom 5 in 1 Spray paint in the color Blue Haven because it’s really easy to use and has paint and primer all in 1.
You can decorate your new planters with real flowers or faux flowers – I personally think faux plants are a great solution for people with brown thumbs like me!
Additional DIY Planter Inspiration
I rounded up some of my favorite blog posts and free plans for you to look at!
These affordable planters use tall round trash cans and some spray paint! How creative is that?
You can use pool noodles to make your own faux stone finish planters.
These extra large planters cost only $15 to make and they’re perfect for the outdoors because they’re made of cedar boards.
I love these scalloped DIY Cedar Fence Boards Planters – only $15 and easy to make.
If you want more inspiration for the outdoors, don’t forget to check out this post about my modern backyard retreat. I have 3 easy DIY projects for you to try including:
This post contains affiliate links to products that I used or recommend. If you purchase something through an affiliate link, I may receive a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. I really appreciate your support!
