How to make an Outdoor planter ( with LED )

This video is sponsored by filter by , to me being creative is making the most of what you have .

And today I wanna show you how to take some of the most basic building materials and add some style in your home or an area outside your home .

And I'm talking about making one of the freshest planners you will see , you may ask but why and for a second , you might make me think .

But to me , the real question is why not ?

Like most projects , this one started off with a trip to my local home center and this project is gonna be made of two by four .

Cedar is cedar tends to hold up very well in the outdoor elements .

It's insect resistance and known to be a good option for planter boxes with a lot of repeating cuts coming up .

Here's a quick tip you can use for your Mitter saw .

All you need .

Here is a piece of lumber that extend beyond your longest cut , attach that to your miters saw then from the blade out all your measurements and just like that , all the measurements is out the window .

All you have to do is focus on how many you need to cut .

And now that I have everything cut the size , I temporarily stack them up in the form of how the box would look in the end result .

Then I the locations that I wanted to add pocket hole screws .

And since I'm working with two by fours , I need to adjust a bit and also the jig itself to accommodate for the two by four thickness .

And once you have all that adjusted , you'll need to drill a bunch of holes .

And if I can give you a tip , do not put all the two by fours in one big pile and then drill all your holes or you might end up with a bunch of extra holes like I did , I'll show you what I mean in a second .

Now that I have all the holes drilled , it's time to put it all together .

If you see where my thumb is , that's a hole that will not get used .

And this is what I meant by keep track of the board that you're drilling .

I was zoned out drilling a bunch of holes and because they had a line on it , I drilled it .

So if you drill once out of the planner at a time , it's easier to keep track of what piece need to be drilled and not .

So the boss just showed up and I gotta make sure I'm on my best behavior and I'm going in the right direction .

All I can tell you is don't judge her .

She wants to wear what she wants to wear and this is how she dress up .

The pack of ho screws is a quick and easy way to join these boards together .

You can also use wood glue if you like .

But I think the pack of hose screws is strong enough to hold the box together .

I kept the design really simple and it should be approachable for just about anyone .

Now that I have all the panels built , I can begin to form out the box and this is pretty self explanatory .

I'm just going to start from one location and work my way around the entire box to like close off the last opening .

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So when they show up , you know , it's time to change them out and with just a few more screws to go , the framing of the box is complete .

The next step is to add a bottom and I'll do that with some reclaimed lumber .

This way , I can keep the cost down .

You may not have access to reclaim lumber , but you can always use pressure treated lumber or just use cedar as well for the bottom , for the bottom might cut some pressure treated two by four .

But this could easily be cedar as well .

The cedar will be a bit lighter , but it will also cost more if I were to drive a screw through the pallet , as is it would more than likely split .

So pre drilling is the way to go to avoid wasting a lot of screws .

I use wood glue in addition to the one screw .

Now , this may be the most complicated part to the project so far , which is cutting miters .

You can keep it simple and use butt joints here .

But I think the might have just come off a whole lot cleaner and it's just more attractive to the eye when you look at it .

And of course , the same could be said about the side , but I think we can kind of get away with that one .

I laid the trim out as it would be attached to the planner box .

Then I marked the line across both parts and switching gears for a second .

I trimmed the two by four down .

So as you can see , I don't have the material to use the pocket hole jig on this , but I still want to use pocket hole screws on this .

So we're gonna make it work and I think two should be plenty .

And I think with this set up and some wood glue we're gonna be rocking .

So I'm pretty happy with that .

And now that I got this all figured out , I can go ahead and put the entire trim together .

Now , I had this leftover piece of pond liner which I had from a project I did a long time ago .

Glad I held on to it because it's finally coming to use .

I am using a cedar lumber for this project .

So in theory , I could put some dirt directly in here and it should be good for a very long time .

But I think adding the liner should help protect dirty water from pouring out of some of the cracks .

This plant will have a led strip in it and I'll use this paper strap to hold it down .

This strip of led I'm putting on is the very first piece of led strip I ever had an old coworker of mine gave it to me to experiment with back in 2014 .

Yep , before I even thought about creating a youtube channel .

So I don't know if that's the reason why they look yellow , but they still work .

So I'm planning to use this bracket to help secure the trim going around the top and I anticipate the led will sit in this little section here .

The led si have are specially coated and they're meant to be used indoor or outdoor .

And since I'm making an outdoor connection , I need some outdoor wire nuts and inside the wire nut , there's some kind of gel in there that will prevent the water from getting to the connection .

The idea behind this is you put the planner wherever you want , you can then run a wire to it and then open up a world of possibilities or you can use a battery pack like this .

And since I mentioned running wires to this planner , I need to run a sleeve from the bottom up to the led splice , adding the led .

This is a nice touch on a final product , but of course , it may not be something everyone is into adding the zip tie on the pipe that I'm using for a sleeve will prevent the pipe from falling through the planner .

You could also add hot glue around it to hold it in place .

I also added some small holes in it for drainage .

The inside is prepped to where I need it to be .

So all I have to do now is add wood glue around the top lip and then attach the trim .

So I would suggest do a dry fit before you apply the wood glue .

Just to make sure things line up that way .

When this part come around , it's a little easier and to make sure the glue do its job , I'm gonna put some clamps on and let that sit for 24 hours after letting the glue set up overnight , I'm not gonna attach these little brackets to the trim .

So if you lift the planner by the lip , these should also take off some of the stress with nothing inside the planter box .

This should give you a general idea on how much this weigh .

As you can see , this is in pounds .

And if I switch the units , then it's in kilograms , it is on the heavy side .

But just consider the scale of it .

If you want to fill it first use straps to move it .

My suggestion is put it in the location you want it to be , then fill it .

Otherwise you'll have a hard time .

Like I did relocating it .

I also added a few blocks to the bottom of the planner to give it a raised look .

I started off by sending this down with my orbital sander .

Even with 80 grits .

I wasn't seeing much progress .

I really felt like I was spending my wheels and I was planning to be out here for many hours .

And then I remembered I had this thing , I believe this was 60 grits and man , this was not sanding .

This thing was eating the wood .

I mean , sand dust was everywhere and this was probably the most excited I was to see sanding dust .

Initially , I wanted to leave the raw look because I couldn't envision what it would look like with the finish on it and even trying it on a test piece , I still didn't see enough to make me feel comfortable .

I know cedar usually turned to this silver I gray look after a certain period of time , especially when it's being exposed to the sun .

So after doing some research and I have no proof of this , I learned that if you put a finishing oil in it , it can help reserve the brown .

Look , I don't know if this is an ongoing maintenance , but if you guys know the answer to that , I would love to hear your thoughts on this .

So the oil I'm using is tongue oil .

And after adding it to one side , I absolutely hated it .

And then I just continued to do the entire thing because at that point I didn't want to turn back .

So I powered through it until it got done and it really grew on me and now it was the battle of the irises .

I didn't know which one to pick up .

So I picked them both up .

I ended up going with the one that was a bit more contained .

I felt like a carrot , the modern look more .

And I'm really happy with that choice .

I kept the plants in the pot .

I just cut the bottom off this way , everything can stay contained and to put the finishing touches on , I added a weed barry to cover up the dirt and then place the rocks on top of that .

And as far as the led goes , I'm gonna power this one from a battery pack .

So this will be completely mobile .

But if you want to run wires to it , I got you .

This is what you do .

Remember that pipe I put in the planner , make sure you don't cover it up .

Now , you don't want to pass a wire through the pipe , preferably the power wire then connected to your power source and your power source can still be a battery pack just at a remote location .

And I'm pretty sure you can find solar powered led strips , but I'm not sure about the R GB version if you enjoyed this video and you'd like to see more bills like this .

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