Not long after we moved in, we built a large planter box out front of the Storefront. It makes it look a bit more homey, and keeps people from peeping into the storefront window. Last fall, we also added a black urn right underneath the mailbox.
Tag: planter
Planter Box Facelift?
Our first spring in the Storefront we built a cedar planter box at the front of the house to keep people from using our “front yard” as a sidewalk, and to keep people from peeping into our window. Its worked well, and I love having a mini garden out there to soften up the concrete landscape.
However, this spring our dear old planter is looking a bit, well shabby. The cedar has weathered into a muddy dirty grey colour, and isnt doing much for me. The spring bulbs have started poking out, but after someone stole my evergreen shrubs from the planter last summer, its a bit bleek.
The planter will get a load of new flowers, top dressing and some sort of evergreen plantings, but I am thinking of changing up the planter as well. The cedar has just seen better days.
In fact this is what it looked like brand new:
A whole lot better than the weathered dirty version I have now, right?
So what can I do to make it look a bit less ghetto? Here’s a couple options I am thinking of:
- Sand the cedar and staining it with a cedar colored stain, so it looks a bit more like it used to.
- Painting it dark grey to match the storefront. (although that may be a bit dark)
- Staining it a darker wood color, something a bit more walnut.
- Trimming it out to match the shaker style paneling of the house, and painting it a fun color (like lime?)
What do you think? Any other brilliant ideas? I need all I can get, throw them at me!
Outdoor Planters
We made a large planter box for our cement front yard a few years ago. It served two purposes, it gave some greenery to an otherwise paved front yard and secondly it made people aware that it was our property not just a very large sidewalk, and thus in turn got them to stop walking right by my front window. It has worked quite well. We still get the odd person who will take the route up by our window, but generally it gives us much more privacy.
In the spring I have bulbs planted and get lovely spring flowers. In the summer I plant bright annuals which last mostly into the fall.
For the holidays (and the rest of the winter) I like to have some fresh greenery and a little bit of rustic winter charm. So this year I hit up a local grocer who sells Christmas trees and greenery. I purchased about 5 bunches of assorted greenery, and my Mom and I set to decorating the planter. We also had some left over garland from another project. We’re not florists, and our only mission was to give it a bit of height and fullness. I also purchased a package of pine cones at my local dollar store, hot glued them to coffee stir sticks, and tucked them in here and there.
We also did a small urn under our mailbox by our front door.
So even though we don’t have Christmas lights up (we don’t have any outdoor electrical boxes!) it still looks festive. That combined with a wreath on the front door has our storefront in the holiday spirit.