Flower Pot Mayhem

I hope everyone had a restful and relaxing Labor Day weekend like I did. A little beach time followed by massive amounts of laundry and a few small home projects is just what I love to do on 3-day weekends! Well maybe not love the laundry part, but it’s nice to get a bunch done at once!

And one of the small projects I finally completed on Monday was repairing a beloved flower pot/planter in my dining room. It was an arrangement sent to my Grandma’s funeral in July of 2012. I’ve prided myself on keeping the plant alive for over 2 years. And I loved that the pot it came in matched the vibe and decor of my house.

So I was pretty mad, sad, and more mad when I bumped into it and caused it to crash to the ground while walking through the dining room the other night. I’ll admit it’s a tight squeeze between the plant stand and the nearby chair, but the plant seemed to need a spot in front of a window!

I decided to glue the pieces back together the best I could and salvage the pot. Besides the sentimental value, a decent planter like that can run $15-20 that I didn’t feel like spending. Had there been fewer large, whole pieces and more crumbly little pieces, I wouldn’t have even considered reassembling it.

With all of the pieces laid out on some old newspaper, I started from the bottom and worked my way up and around with some household super glue I always have on hand. Any “super glue” will do the trick, but for this I used Loctite’s Super Glue Liquid. I also used a trick using modeling clay I’ve seen here to hold the awkward pieces in place while the glue dried.

The bottom of the pot was a little uneven, so I used a small piece of Play-Doh on the back side to hold it level while I was working on the bottom.

I glued a piece on, and let it dry for a half hour before attempting another piece. So it was a slow-going project I worked on over the course of the day.

After half of the side was complete, I dry fitted the remaining pieces to make sure I didn’t put one piece in that prevented me from gluing in its neighbor. And good thing, because I discovered I was missing a good-sized piece.

So I went back to the temporary pot holding the plants and got my hands dirty digging through the dirt. I found several smaller pieces not worth saving before I found the big one I was searching for!

I glued it in place and slowly and delicately put in the last few pieces. It was by no means perfect. There are a few spots where the piece is clearly in the right spot, but it doesn’t touch everywhere it should. Although, if you’re not standing too close it looks pretty good.

I wasn’t concerned about it being waterproof since I already kept a plastic dish under the planter. But some of the holes were a little wider than I had hoped. And I didn’t want dirt to escape. So I set out to buy some sort of cheap pot to set inside my masterpiece to hold the dirt and the plant but still be concealed.

No luck with a pot since my planter is wide and short and most are tall and skinny. But I did use my imagination and pick up this coco liner from the garden department at the home center.

I got the smallest one they had, but it was still too big. So I got out my sharp scissors and cut a piece the shape of a pizza slice out.

Then tried to form a new, smaller bowl with it, but there was still too much bunching in the middle. So I cut more out in this weird shape and it seemed to do to trick.

I used a household/office stapler to hold the coco liner together along the seam.

Then it was ready to be set in the repaired planter.

The coco liner isn’t as concealed as I had originally planned. But I do like that it matches the colored accents on the bowl. And for now the whole plant stand has been relocated to the corner so no more hips bump into it. Ideally I’ll find a spot in another room where it can get more sunlight with or without the plant stand which I’d like to paint or distress.

OK, maybe it’s time to trim the overhang…

Who else loves having live plants in their home? Did you know there’s a specific ratio of how many live plants you should have per square feet in your house? You can find out what it is here as well as which plants are good for eliminating certain pollutants.