It all started months ago when I saw a post via Apartment Therapy about hanging spray-painted pots on a fence. I knew that I had to do it. There were no ifs, there were no buts, there were no excuses. It. Was. Happening.
There was a slight problem, though. I knew that for the stretch of fence that I had and the vision that I had, I did not want to pay the exorbitant costs of the pre-made pot hangers that are on the market. In fact, I couldn’t afford to pay that. I pondered on the problem for awhile and decided that there was no reason that we couldn’t make pot hangers ourselves. Aaron gave me The Look. The one that says, “Hey. You really mean I could make the pot hangers. And – would you like that before or after the basement office, patio footings, garden fence, cold frames, butterfly garden, dining room furniture, bathroom remodel, and playroom furniture?” I ignored him and cheerfully suggested we do the project together for our 3rd wedding anniversary over a dinner of a chicken-BBQ-red onion-green apple pizza and champagne.
We assembled all of the necessary equipment.
“Ingredients”
- Twenty pots
- Six containers of paint – the same colors as our mural in the playroom
- Paint brush
- One 4×4 post
- Reciprocating Saw
- Many lengths of strap steel ~ 20 feet
- Hammer
- Vice grips
- Angle grinder
- Big beefy biceps
- Black rust-preventing spraypaint
- Drill press or something hefty
- Screws
- Shims (optional)
- Soil mix of your choice
- Seeds or plants
Then, we got started.
Directions
1. Take your 4×4 post and hold one of the pots up against the side of it. Using a pencil (not on the ingredients list, whoops)draw the outline of the pot against the 4×4 post. Cut the excess chunks off with the reciprocating saw so that your form looks like this:
2. Cut your strap steel into approximately one foot lengths using the angle grinder or something else hefty. Watch the sparks!
3. Using your big beefy biceps, vice grips, and hammer, shape the strap steel into the shape needed by the pots to secure against the fence or other vertical object.
Continue holding the strap steel up to your pot to check the fit and form it as necessary. You want a longer piece on the bottom to support the pot and a closely angled hook at the top to hold the pot snug against the vertical object.
4. Once the metal is shaped, drill two vertical holes into the pot holder. These holes will be used to fasten the pot holder to the vertical object.
5. Spray paint the strap steel.
6. Paint your pots! I used six paint colors and painted four sets of five bases one color and then gave each base a different rim color so that no color combination of base and rim was exactly the same (although the same two colors may have been used in flip-flopped places).
7. We screwed the now-dry pot holders to the fence, filled the pots with soil mix and seeds, and hung them up for the world to see.
Finally, the project was finished.
Weeeeeelll…. It’s never really finished, is it?
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