0 DIY 5-Foot Patio Planters - Part 1

Last spring was our first spring in the new house. Being all excited to have your own space, you just want to do everything that people not living with their parents want to do! No, no, nothing naughty, you dirty minds, LOL, I am talking about being able to decorate as you like. And for me, having our own patio terrace got me excited to do some planting... but I've never tended to a garden before.

Blurry photo above taken from the previous owners when selling their house, so the patio furniture is not ours. But as you can see, the floor is concrete up in this rooftop terrace, so there was no soil ground to plant into. I looked into getting those plant boxes that hang off the ledge, but I wanted more planting space than that. And I didn't want individual pots of flowers either. I wanted beds of flowers!

I decided that what was out on the market was not gonna satisfy me and my budget, so I had to take matters into my own hands! We measured our terrace space, and we drew out on paper what we wanted my planters to look like, and how big.

Above was out first sketch. Picture us with a tiny piece of note paper and one pen. One of us starts sketching and the other would grab the pen from the first person and add strokes to this diagram, then the first person grabs the pen back to add more, and back and forth. This doesn't work. You will get no where by doing this, except that you've had the chance to see and talk out each others' ideas.

Above is the second attempt, I think I drew this one. Ignore the writing on it because I don't think it would make much sense to you as the calculations are specific to our needs. Also, the final product didn't look exactly like this drawing in terms of the inside cross beams, just keep reading.

I decided I wanted three 5-foot planters (and I wanted to paint them a dark dark brown). J helped me calculate how many pieces of wood we will need in total and how many cuts we'll need the Home Depot personel to cut for us because we don't own carpentry machines. So it meant all our measurements had to be accurately calculated when we are IN the store because we don't have the tools to make correction cuts after we take the wood home. Luckily we are both good math people =)

So we set out to Home Depot - several times actually, because we only bought enough wood for one planter first so we can go home and do a 'test' build to make sure our measurements all worked out, and then we made more trips after to get more wood for the 2nd and 3rd planter. So, we brought home all our wood pieces, paint, and nails, and lugged everything up 4 flights of stairs to make it to the roof top. You won't believe how much each of us were cussing in our heads about this idea, lol, or maybe you would believe it.

I'm sorry, there are no process photos, because I hadn't intended for this to be a tutorial. =P

We went right into building which was all pretty easy and quick. I am sure that just by looking at the planters you can figure out how the pieces were put together. I held the pieces in place while J hammered the nails in.

Painting took a few days though because I could only do a coat after work each day. And plus, I did all the painting myself! To cut the story short, cause there's been way too much reading already... here are my finished 5-foot planters!

What do you think?

Here's a look at the center cross beams:

Aren't they so pretty?? =D

Oh yes, in total for all the wood and paint and nails, I think I spent just around $150, I can't remember exactly because this was last summer, and I've lost the receipt. But I certainly remember being super proud of the cost because I know buying already-made planters this size would have ran me at least $150-200 EACH. Plus, I have not seen one's like mine in garden centers - not that size and that color. This is the beauty of DIY, you get the look YOU want!

I also started planting already. I will share more about my planting in a later post.

B.