How to Use A Vintage Crate For An Indoor Planter

I wish I could take credit for this idea.  I first spotted this nifty planter idea a few years back in Kerry Russel's very hip home in Brooklyn. 

elle décor 

Well, just a few days ago I replanted this very sad dracaena tree in some new soil.

It is now standing up without support. Yahoo. One of my pet-peeves about large houseplants are their containers.  I don't really like the way a plant looks when it is placed inside a larger, nicer looking container -like a basket for example. From a distance it looks nice but I'm not a fan of the fake moss or other camouflaging techniques that hide the pot within a pot reality that is required for most large plants because of drainage.

For me this is a great solution. I had the box on hand and some leftover cedar paneling from the shed project that made this project pretty easy. I was very lucky in that the width of the box took seven panels exactly so that I didn't need to rip anything, which is good because this housewife doesn't own a table saw. 

I just cross-cut everything to size and then figured out where and how big the trunk opening needed to be. I used a japanese handsaw for this which I will post about some other time. This frigoverre lid was the right circumference to trace for the trunk. 

I used a coping saw for the pieces that had a shorter radius...(Sawdust in the house? No matter).  

And a skilsaw for the bigger radiuses because the coping saw could not turn that corner. I used a very fine-toothed blade for the best cut. Ideally you'd have a band saw and a spindle sander for this but making do with what I had for tools worked out fine.

I used some thin slats to hold the panels together, making sure to leave room at the sides and ends so the lid would fall in place.

 3/4" brads held everything in place.

And of course it has to be two-pieced so that you can get it around the trunk and have future access to the plant to water it.

I finished the top with butcher's wax but left the box alone.

This is an especially good system if you have a little one or pets that like to get in the dirt!