This time of the year is a great time for working outdoors in the Pacific Northwest. It’s not too hot, it’s not too cold, and it doesn’t rain all day long. With the weekend coming up, we thought we’ll share an idea for building a planter from paver stones. It’s an easy and quick project. In fact, you could easily complete this fun project before dinner tonight. Are you ready?
For this project, you will need five or six paver stones. The pavers shown in the photo above were pulled from the selection at our Albany store. They are very inexpensive — just a little over a dollar each.
After you have purchased your pavers, you will need to lay out four pavers to form a perfect square or rectangle. Overlap the ends so you have two good surfaces making contact. Once you have your form, move one end of a tile so you can apply a construction adhesive on the overlapping lip and firmly press back into place. We used the PL Premium Adhesive from Loctite. This construction adhesive can be found along with caulks and sealants in the painting section at your local Parr. BTW, you will need a caulk gun to apply the adhesive onto the pavers.
Once you have glued one corner of the planter together, move to the other corners and repeat the adhesive process. All corners should now be adhered. This will leave one or two pieces for the bottom. We decided to not glue the bottom pieces into place to allow the container to drain better. You should wait 24 to 48 hours before moving the pavers. Your planter could fall apart when you move it if the adhesive is not fully dry. You don’t want that to happen, do you?
After the adhesive has fully dried, you can paint the planter if you choose. Make sure to use a specially formulated acrylic paint that is permanent and weather resistant. This type of paint does not peel or crack, and can be used on concrete, wood, terra cotta, and other materials.
Once the paint has cured, you can fill the planter pots with a few of your favorite greens. BTW, the planters can be heavy so make sure you move them to where you would like to keep them before you start planting.
Here’s a video highlighting how to build a planter out of pavers:
