Let's Try a Succulent DIY

When I think of succulent lovers, I think of environmentally conscious people. Something about loving plants just seems to go hand and hand with the environment. Something else I associate with the environment for some reason is DIY's. Maybe it's because when people do things themselves, they aren't ordering from a place of mass production, or maybe it's because I associate DIY projects with minimalistic people. Either way, what I'm getting at here is that succulents and DIY projects go well together. So, what I have for you today is a DIY project that I have tried. I did not necessarily come up with the idea, but it seemed like a quite simple project. I guess I'll just get right to it... let's try this succulent DIY.

The thing I made is a wooden box planter. Basically, this is just a wooden box. I thought this would be such a simple project, and wood is such a good accent to succulents that it would be such a good decor item to have.

Project Breakdown:

I used a 6 ft X 6 in X 5/8 in plank of cedar wood. This allowed me to make a 6 in x 6 in box while having ample leftover wood. The plank I got cost around $3. Other things I used included a power saw, a sander, a nail gun, some clamps, wood stain and brush, gloves, and a rag. Just from this, you could maybe see why not just anyone can make a wooden box that easily.

The first thing I did was sand down my wooden plank. Note that cedar wood splinters very easily, so sanding was somewhat a pain. A sander is not absolutely necessary, as sandpaper can be used, but a sander saves a lot of time and energy when doing this.

Once the edges of the wood were crisp, I moved on to cutting the wood into 6 inch squares. This calls for a power saw, and let me tell you, I had no experience with those things. The saw makes the wood lose about an eighth of an inch when cutting, as well as brings the splinters back. So after sawing four 6 inch squares, I went back and sanded down the edged again.

At this point I have four squares of wood ready for assembling. I chose to do straight cuts as opposed to angled cuts, so putting the box together was pretty straight forward. I clamped one square to the table and nail gunned it. One again, my experience with nail guns is also zero, so not all of the shots were clean. I ended up having to use a hammer to nail some of them in the rest of the way. I continued to construct the box the rest of the way... I am not sure how else to say that. I did it without detailed instructions, so can you. (Once again, a nail gun probably isn't needed, a hammer and nails would work, but it is so much easier to come out with cleaner results with the nail gun, and a nail gun takes a lot less work.)

At this point I have a box without a bottom. The bottom of the box was the hardest part. I measured the area in the open bottom and tried my best to cut a piece of wood that size. The problem was that the saw makes the cut lose about an eighth of an inch as I mentioned earlier, also, I have a 6 inch X 6 foot plank, so cutting down the 6 inch side to be a half inch smaller was not an easy cut for an inexperienced power saw user like myself. So, I cheated and I had my dad do it. And obviously, once the bottom piece was cut to the right size, I nailed gunned it too.

The box is now constructed. So now all I had left to do was stain the box. I had also never stained anything before, but I have painted things, and the only difference here was that I have to wipe the area after painting it on the box, and also that I wore gloves to do it. So, I stained the whole box, and ta-dah, it'd done.

Review:

I feel like when I see DIY's similar to this one, they are listed at "easy". But if I didn't have a dad that can build things to help me, I do not think I could have made this box. Also, the demographic of people who would want to make a wooden succulent planter probably do not own things like a power saw and a nail gun. So, yeah, I made the box, and no, it wasn't that hard, but I still wouldn't advertise this as an easy DIY, because I don't think a majority of people have the knowledge and means to break out the power tools to make their succulent planters.

I do have to say that my box looks pretty dang good in case you needed my opinion on that too. So, once again, it is a possible DIY, and mine personally turned out well, but I 100% recommend having your dad help.