Flower Box Tutorial: Bringing Southern Charm to My Porch

UPDATE: This project is not just for those with porches! I have been reading all of your wonderful comments and I realized something, I don't want my porch-free friends to feel left out. This project can easily be applied to a regular planter such as this one from Home Depot.

My husband surprised me with a trip to South Carolina to visit my sister a few years ago and it was amazing. I instantly fell in deep love with Charleston, particularly the amazing architecture downtown and at the nearby plantations. I am bit obsessed with architecture and design and the old homes and buildings were so amazing, I had to continually remind myself to breath. There were so many pretty details like these sweet planter boxes, dripping with flowers.

They inspired me to bring a little Southern charm to my own home, on a much simpler scale, of course. I decide to try my hand at some planter boxes that could hang from my porch railing. They were quick and easy to make and you can play along if you like.

Step 1: Purchase two planter boxes. I found these in the Garden Center at K-Mart on sale for about $10 each, but have also seen them at Home Depot and other home improvement stores. I opted for the over rail planter style that sit on top of the porch rail because I thought they would be kinder to my new porch railing, not leaving scuff and rust marks like their metal or wrought-iron counter parts, but I did not anticipate problems with high winds (more on that later). There are many styles of planter boxes, so decide which works best for your porch or windows.

2. Paint the boxes. I used Krylon spray paint for plastic to paint them black. One can covered both boxes (Don't paint the bottoms, the paint will just rub off on your railing).

3. Accessorize. Because I have an uncontrollable urge to embellish everything, I purchased these wooden accents at Home Depot to put on the front of the boxes.



4. Paint the wooden accents with some ivory spray paint.

5. Attach the wooden accents to the front of the boxes. When everything was dry, I used Liquid Nails (learning the hard way that a little goes a long way) to attach the accents to the boxes. If I had to do it again, I think I would used a different adhesive. After a summer of heat and water, the wooden accents were a bit loose (ask an employee at your hardware store what type of adhesive they recommend).

6. Secure the boxes to the porch. In each corner of the planter box is a drainage hole. We threaded a small plastic zip tie (available at hardware stores) through the drainage holes and then wrapped it around the porch rail and secured it.

7. Plant them full of vibrant-colored flowers and pretend for a minute you are downtown Charleston, SC.

Please note: Choose your style of planter box carefully. The planter box grooves were a little wider than my railing and I live in a very windy area and despite my zip ties, on a few occasions, I discovered this...

Amazingly, the flowers survived a couple of these crashes. If I were purchasing the planters again, I think I would buy a style that attached to the porch with some sort of hardware. I have seen the over rail planters work well on some homes, so just decide what works best for you.

I am linking up to these blogs this week:

Nautical Nursery: Striped Paint Banner Tutorial

Here is the latest installment from the Nautical Nursery posts; a striped paint banner on the wall above my son's crib. I am really happy with how it turned out, now I just need to choose some letters (wood or vinyl?) to go above his crib. "Captain Jack" is courtesy of Photoshop and not his actual name, just a place holder to show you how it is supposed to look. Anyway, on with the post...

Despite a handful of painting experiences, one skill has evaded me: clean paint lines, more particularly, clean stripes. Is there anything more frustrating than peeling off the tape from a big painting project only to realize your paint dripped, or leaked through the tape ? My husband would tell you that the remedy for this is to stop reading Pottery Barn Kids Catalogs, thereby alleviating the need for stripes on your walls.

I wanted to paint a striped banner above my son's crib and I was determined to get it right. So I loitered in paint stores and interrogated paint contractors, Home Depot employees and other DIY aficionados. So with their advice and my own trial and error, I give you two gifts: Six Tips for Clean Paint Lines and The Striped Paint Banner Tutorial.

Six Tips for Clean Paint Lines

1. Use Frog Tape - I believe this bright green painter's tape possesses magical properties. I know not everyone will agree with me. Like gun control and Justin Beiber, Frog Tape is a very polarizing issue. I've heard compelling arguments for and against, but in my personal experience, it was better than the standard issue blue tape for making clean paint lines.

2. Use a laser level when placing your tape - We used this handy little laser level from Home Depot. It has a vacuum that helps it grip the wall and then it projects a pretty red laser line across the wall so that you can line your tape up perfectly straight (also, if you let your significant other buy a toy such as this, he will be more willing to help with the project).

3. Wet Your Frog Tape- after your tape is in place on the wall, run a wet cloth over the tape (this activates the sealing process which helps to prevent paint from running underneath the tape).

4. Paint Your Base Color Twice-I think this is the most important tip, and it's a bit mind boggling, so stay with me here. Let's say your painting a white wall with a grey stripe. Once you've painted your base color of white, that paint has dried, and you've taped off your lines for your grey stripe, paint the striped section white. The reason? When the paint bleeds under the tape -and it will- the bleed will be white on white- so you won't see it. Once the white paint is dry, you can paint inside your tape lines with grey and the grey is less likely to bleed since there is already dry white paint in the spots where it would seep through- make sense? I hope so.

5. Less is More - The more paint on your roller, the more likely it is to run and bleed through your tape lines, so roll it on lightly.

6. Remove Tape With Caution - After you've done all of this meticulous painting and taping, you must overcome the urge to rip the tape off the wall. Pulling quickly might pull some of the new paint right off the wall when you're dealing with stripes. So remove the tape very carefully and slowly pulling downward at an angle.

And there it is, my vast wealth of knowledge of painting stripes!

Striped Paint Banner Tutorial

Supply List

4 paint colors (for the small navy and red stripes we just used sample cans from Lowe's)

1 roll of Frog Tape (available at Lowe's)

4 Paint trays

Paint roller with 4 replacement heads

Drop cloth

Tape measure

Laser level

Pencil

I'm linking up to these fabulous blogs: