This planter is part one of a two part project. I am making Murphy, my cat, wheat grass otherwise known as cat grass, in hopes that it will save my plants. So of course an ordinary planter simply would not do. (Inspiration for this project can be found here.) I wanted it to have a weathered vintage sort of look, I hesitate to use the word “shabby chic” because that’s not at all what I wanted but that’s pretty much filled up my head and absorbed all thought so there it is.

I hoped my husband would make the box but he rambled off a long list of wood cutting tools he would need, and that was the the end of that dream. Boo.

We found a sufficient enough 24 inch box at Home Depot and I set about destroying it in the name of DIY.

Home Depot sells 8oz sample sized Behr paint cans for $2.94, which is perfect for this project. I fell in love with this color, much to my husbands horror. I want to paint every room in my house Smokey Slate. I used about half of it on the planter.

Once it dried, I used sand paper and a hammer to destroy it. I wish I didn’t use the hammer – other then knocking a big chunk out of the right side of my planter, it pretty much made quarter size dents that look really odd. Anyway, with that regret in mind, once I’d destroyed my beautiful paint job well enough, I moved on to the next step.

Side note: I don’t know the grade of the sand paper. I found it lying on the floor in the garage but I imagine it was the roughest possible as the first swipe almost tore all of the paint off the planter.

I used a paint brush to apply the stain…

…and then with an old towel I “borrowed” from the gym, I rubbed it in and wiped it away.

At first I was HORRIFIED. The smokey slate was ruined and it didn’t look that great. However, I was determined to make this a successful project, so I pushed on. Apply stain. Wipe away. Repeat. So on and so forth. After about 3 or 4 cycles, it started to look passible! Thankfully, I can say I really like it. I am looking forward to making a few wood signs.

Stay tuned for the cat grass!