Although our garden is still in a complete state of chaos after taking down the garden wall and starting to build a new raised bed, we still couldn’t resist tackling yet another garden related project.
In addition to finally starting to build the foundations for our new raised bed – here’s a sneaky peak –
we’ve also started to think about the final design and planting. I know, I know. Every time we do this, we say that we’ll finish our projects before starting other ones, but we just couldn’t resist. Concentrating on one thing at a time would just be too easy!Even before properly designing our garden (and we still think of it as a work in progress) we bought these huge garden plant pots at IKEA.
We’d been looking for some really large pots for a while, but they were all way beyond our price limit, so you can imagine our delight at finding these beauties. Even better, they were on offer at only £15 each. The only problem was that they only had them in blue and red – luckily that’s nothing that a bit of paint can change.
At first I tried painting one of them indoors, but the paint smelt so much, that it made me dizzy within seconds. Even after painting these three outside, I felt quite ill for about an hour afterwards. Other than the smell, the paint – we used Hammerite Silver Metal Paint – covered really well and gives a great silver finish.
We applied the paint using a small roller, which was really quick and effective. After about an hour of work, we’d already applied the first coat of paint.
While the plant pots were turned upside down, we also drilled some drainage holes into the base of the pots. After a bit more painting, the pots are ready to fill.
With the huge amount of rubble lying around in our garden, we decided to use some of the old paving slabs as drainage for the bottom.
Now they’re ready to fill with some pretty plants. We can’t wait for the garden to be more finished to finally but the pots to use. Now all we need is some sunshine!
Is the summer where you are as miserable as it is here? Are you like us and can only face doing the gardening when the weather is nice?
Paint can make anything look pretty. I could hardly wait until you finish the brick wall… I guess that’s going kind of slow huh?
Don’t even go there… we’ve not even started yet! The plan is to see how we get on building the little wall for the raised bed and then, if it all works out okay, to rebuild the garden wall ourselves.
It may take a while yet….
Cx
It’s so rainy and cold around here that I’m wondering if some Christmas decorations would help my mood!
Yep, Christmas Decorations sound about right – or a holiday!
Cx
I’m not going to jinx myself and tell you what kind of weather we’re having here in San Francisco because if I do, fogust is sure to come early! :)
It’s not raining at the moment – seems like that’s the best we can hope for! We’re planning to visit San Francisco next year – maybe we’ll just have to wait for some sunshine till then!
Cx
I’ve been following along on your progress and I can’t WAIT to see the result. It’s looking so good. Esp. right after you painted the fence. Such a huge change!
//Justynn
Thanks Justynn! I can’t wait to see it finished either – it’ll be so nice to have a usable garden! It’s amazing what a difference a bit of paint can make!
Cx