Planter House Number

by Amanda C, Hometalk Team

7 Materials

$20-40

3-5 Hours

Easy

Yes, I know, another project for the brother-in-law and wifey, but their house numbers were falling off, so I decided to make them some new ones! I thought it would be fun to add some plant life by the door, so I decided to make it into a planter! With the crazy cost of nice house numbers I followed a little trick I saw online and made the number portion with nails. Hammer the nails into a wood slab and create a nice box for your plants and -BOOM- you have a cute little house number planter!

Look how lovely! And you can make it any color you want, add any plants you want, and use different colored nails if you so wish... or splurge and buy house numbers to post on the board.

Materials:

-1x4x8 wood board

-Wood Glue

-Box of nails (not pictured... I used 1 1/2" exterior galvanized nails)

-Box of wood screws (I used 1 1/4" and only ended up using 6 in total)

-15/32 2'x2' plywood (you could use something else with a nice size surface, but this was easiest for me to transport at the time)

-2 short screws (I honestly don't know what length I used because I found them sporadically in my tool bag, but as long as the screws are shorter than the thickness of your board you will be good to go)

-Plants of your choice

-Sandpaper

-Stain (not pictured)

-Hammer (not pictured)

-Drill

-Piece of wire or picture hangers (not pictured)

STEP 1: Cut your wood pieces to the dimensions you wish.

I cut my plywood piece to be 14.5" x 20", but you can make it smaller or larger as you like. My 1x4x8 wood was cut into 4 pieces as follows:

1-10.5"

1-12"

2-3.5"

STEP 2: Grab the pieces you cut from your 1x4x8 board and prepare to make a sort of incomplete box shape for the planter portion of your piece.

First take each 3.5" piece of wood and drill pilot holes using a drill bit into two corners. This will help keep the wood from splitting.

Once you have your pilot holes drilled you can connect each 3.5" piece to the 10.5" piece on both ends so that they create a long u shape.

STEP 3: Now grab your 12" piece and place it over the u-shape you just created and drill it in place. *Remember to drill pilot holes for the screws in this piece as well.

At this point it should look like the picture on the right above.

STEP 4: Drill drain holes on the bottom of the "box" you just created. *The bottom is the 10.5" piece.

STEP 5: Measure 1" over from the left and 1" up from the bottom and glue your half-box in the space you just marked.

*This does leave a larger space on the right, but I did that to help balance once the numbers were put on the right. It was a personal choice, but you can center the box, or put it wherever you would like on the board.

STEP 6: While your wood glue is drying, it is time to prep the numbers for your board. Measure the distance from the top of your half-box to the top of the back board. (Mine measured at 15.5".) I didn't want my numbers to be all the way to the top of the board or touching the half-box, so I subtracted 1.5" from each end and was left with 12.5" to divide between the 3 numbers of the address. I gave each address 4" in height and about 3" or so in width. I then found a font that I liked on the computer and expanded the numbers to that size (4"x3") and printed it out to serve as a sort of tracing mechanism.

STEP 7: Place the numbers you printed out in step 6 on the board measuring evenly between them. You will be nailing over top the print of each number.

Once you tape down the numbers where you want them to be simply nail overtop of them to replicate the font. Be sure to nail them in securely. This part gets a bit tedious, but it's worth it considering the numbers I liked would have raked in at $18 and instead I spent $3.50 on a box of nails.

Once you are completely done nailing in the design just remove the paper from around the nails. You may need some tweezers for this portion.

STEP 8: You could do this earlier in the game, but I decided to wait until it was all together. Either way it is time to sand down any rough edges.

Once the piece is sanded simply stain it or paint it in the color of your choice. You will also want to seal it for the outdoors with a Thompson's sealer or something similar. I did not take a picture of this process since someone is borrowing a load of sealer that I currently have, and I didn't want to purchase more in the meantime, but I will do it before we put it outside.

STEP 9: Once your stain has dried you can turn the piece over (I didn't stain the backside) and install the hanging device for the piece. You can use picture hangers or whatever suits you best, but I did an old picture hanging technique. I simply screwed in 2 short screws into the wood at an even level and then wound a piece of wire and twisted it around each screw. I was sure to pinch the wire with pliers to secure it in place. Now it can be hung from a screw or nail by simply resting the wire over either.

STEP 10: Now you just fill the box portion with the plants of your choice!

I wish I didn't live in an apartment building cause I would make one for myself! Maybe I will make one for my door with my apartment number on it ;)

Enjoyed the project?

You can do it! Saved to your projects

Nails (Lowe's)
1x4x8 Wood Board (Lowe's)
Wood Glue (Home Depot)
Wood Screws (Lowe's)
15/32 2x2 plywood (Home Depot)
Plants (Home Depot)
Wood Stain (Homemade)

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3 questions

Joy on Aug 05, 2017

What size nails?? Nice idea & could work for me, too..

0
Tyrah Moody on Oct 27, 2018

What font did you use?

0
Sylvia velazquez on Jan 13, 2019

How much you think is, more or less, the total cost including your time (work)? Thanks🙋🏼

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2 of 18 comments

Emily Harris on Aug 18, 2024

So cute!

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Omaifi on Aug 18, 2024

Such a great idea! I recently moved, so I have a lot on my plate with setting up the new place, including buying furniture and home decor. I’ve been browsing wayfair a lot lately, they have so many options that fit different styles and budgets. Adding something unique like a planter house number is definitely on my to-do list. It’s small details like this that really make a house feel like home. Plus, it’s functional and makes it easy for guests to find your place!

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