Make Old Drawers into Porch Planters

Posted On March 30, 2020

We’ll show you how you can turn your own repurposed drawers into planters in our step-by-step guide.

Be creative and make something interesting for your porch.

Instructions

Step 1

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.

Step 2

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

Step 3

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.

Step 4

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.

Step 5

After the bases were built I tried the drawers on top, so this part is finished.

Step 6

I had these pieces of wood left over. 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 that I had on hand. Then I glued and nailed them onto the bases with nail gun.

Step 7

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

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!

Website: www.myrepurposedlife.com