Refresh Sad, Plastic Pots with Wood Stain

Alternate Title - I think I just turned into an old lady!

I have always been the girl that doesn't garden or do any type of yard work. My eyes glaze over when people talk about plants/flowers, and I skip all blog posts that are about anything yard related.

Somehow, this has changed in the last month or so. It all started with the original (40+ years old) holly bushes in our front yard. I wanted them ripped out, and didn't really care what replaced them, I just didn't like them at all. Asher and I spent a few days doing lots of digging and root cutting before they were finally gone. I planted a few new shrubs to replace them, and added a few flowers while I was at it. The next thing I know, I am cutting a new edge for the flower bed, researching plants, buying bales of pine straw, removing a fence, adding a new flower bed, digging up grass and replanting it, buying more plants, creating a backyard lighting log so that I know what plants will work where, adding another flower bed, propagating plants, and creating container flower gardens. A month ago, this would have made my head spin, but it has become something that I really enjoy. I'm still not really sure what happened, but I am having fun, and my yard looks better than ever.

When this first started, I bought some flowers and just put them in some old flower pots that I already had. I didn't give it much thought; I just planned to use them on our back patio. I soon realized that these flowers weren't getting enough sun on our patio, so they needed to be moved. We have very few areas in our yard that get full sun, so the only place I could put them was on this corner of the driveway. The designer in me hated the way this looked. I knew I could do better. I didn't like the pots, and I didn't like how they looked like 3 random pots just put next to each other.

I really didn't want to spend more money on flower pots, but these were just sad looking. I decided that I would try to spruce them up and if it didn't work out, then I would get new planters. My first thought was to spray paint them, but the idea of dumping all of the contents to paint them was very unappealing. I decided to try to stain the plastic.

I grabbed a random container of stain out of the cabinet, and just applied it with a rag. It took really well on one of the pots, but the other two needed a few coats of stain. I was impatient and didn't let the stain dry between coats, so they got sticky. I just sprayed them with a coat of polyurethane, so that the "sticky" would go away and I would be left with a nice finish. I just covered the plants and soil with a garbage bag to avoid covering them in polyurethane.The pots looked MUCH better. I stacked the pots, replanted everything, and added a sweet potato vine to the mix so that there would be something to spill over the side.

I am so happy with the way this turned out. The plants I used are  petunias, sweet potato vine, and wandering jew. I am looking forward to seeing how they look in a few weeks with some nice growth. I'm so glad that I decided to try something new. I had no idea that I could transform these pots so easily with wood stain. I just knew I was going to have to buy new pots.

Do you have any new hobbies? Have you ever stained something plastic with wood stain?



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It's Overflowing
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Suburbs Mama
Making Home Base
Design, Dining + Diapers
Frugal Friday - The Shabby Nest 
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