Pallet Project: Kitchen Herb Planter Box

I have an herb garden outside of my kitchen eating area. However, I have irrational fears that venomous snakes lurk in between the whiskey barrels my herbs are planted in. I know they're just waiting for me to come snip some basil and then they'll pounce (I don't know if snakes pounce, but in my head they do, so we'll just go with that). So unless I feel like handing a five-year-old sharp scissors to have his way with my rosemary, I avoid the herb garden like the plague. {I have issues, people...the snake fear is quite similar to the vomit-fear, which apparently I'm not alone in, according to the 68 comments left on the vomit post from January. Does it strike anyone else as hilarious that my most read/pinned/commented post is about the pukes? Ummm, yeah.}

This is where she started out. A good ol' side-of-the-road pallet. Didn't cost a thing.

We aren't into pulling apart the pallet with our gloved hands...too much work. We just get down to business and hack it apart with the circular saw. Get 'er done.

We created the box based on the dimensions of our kitchen window and cut out pallet pieces accordingly. We built it with skinny finishing nails and Gorilla Glue (as in it's stuck together for life).

After a good sanding, I painted it with simple acrylic paint in an aqua color. I didn't want to prime it since I knew I'd be weathering it and didn't want primer to show once the aqua was sanded down.

Does anyone else know the beauty of Google Translate? It makes my husband think my four years of high school AP French were really worth it. I can type up an adoring phrase, it translates it for me and I text it to him. He thinks I'm so smart (our little secret, k?). I used this lovely Google app to create the phrase for my box (because doing it in French makes it super fancy, you know?).

I have to admit, after painstakingly transferring the message to the box, I kinda wish I had just done "herbs" and been done with it. I'm awesome at making things ten times harder than they have to be.
I used painter's tape and secured my Word-generated French saying to the box.

Using a {somewhat} sharp pencil, heavily trace the words. You're basically making an impression onto the wood that you can fill in later with paint.

You can see the impression here. I also used a ball point pen since apparently the one pencil in the house wasn't sharp enough. Where have all the pencils gone?

After it's traced, I went back and outlined the letters, too. This probably wasn't necessary, but I'm kind of OCD about these sorts of things. After that, I used my tiny paint brush and used black acrylic paint to fill in the letters. The indention left by the pen impression lets the paint flow within the letter, but not outside of it.

Ta-Da! The knot in the wood gave me a heck of a time with the "S", so it's not perfect.

After it was dry, I sanded it down quite a bit. I thought I'd try to do it by hand and then gave up and got out my palm sander. It was done in like 30 seconds after that.

I sprayed the inside with this leak seal stuff to prevent water from going all over my window sill. It's technically not for wood...but I improvised. I first used drywall putty to fill in all the holes/gaps. Then I went over them with this spray that forms a rubber-like barrier. It was very cool. I found it at Walmart by the caulk.

I used these little rocks in the bottom of the planter so the water can drain into them instead of giving my herbs root-rot. I bought waaaaay too much of these and the soil. I used the moisture-control soil, too...I'm just not used to planting in something without the "normal" type of drainage. Fingers & toes crossed that these plants live. I just can't face the snakes if these give up the ghost.

And there we go. I was excited to remember that I had these little chalk-board garden markers leftover from the school-paper organizing project. Score!! So basically, the only things I spent money on for this project were the contents (including the rubber spray stuff to seal it).

The "Herbal Kitchen"!

Partying Here:

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