Why I made this

What you need

Tools used

• Hand Saw
• Screwdriver
• Electric sander (for cleaning up the trellis)
• Drill
• Varnishes, finishes etc.

Difficulty

Beginner

Time taken

2 hours

Cost

Zero. I used repurposed wood and all fixings, screws and finishes were ones I already owned.

The idea

We like house plants but have run out of useful shelves to put them on. We had a spare corner near our window in our lounge and I wanted to build a tiered, A-frame, plant stand for it. As a bonus I also built a single plant stand to raise a larger plant on the other side of the room.

Design and build

The design was largely dictated to by my choice of timber. I had an old garden trellis which we were no longer using in the garden. I decided to use that as the shelves and then repurposed some door trim left over from another DIY project.

For the A-frame one, I wanted staggered shelves that got narrower as they went up. This would allow me to have large plants at the bottom and smaller ones further up and allow light to get to all of them. For the smaller stand I used a leftover piece of the trellis and cut some spare timber I had lying around to make some legs.

In the plans I have not detailed the dimension of the shelves. This is because I already had the trellis so I just cut into pieces by multiple of slats: 3, 4 and 6 for the A frame and 5 for the small stand. The only thing I had to plan in terms of dimension was the height of the legs and the spacing between them on the A frame to make the angle.

Creating the A-frame stand

I cut three lengths of the trellis to make the shelves. The trellis didn’t have any rot but did have some green lichens etc. on it so I sanded these back. To save me time I used an electric sander.

Then I cut the two back legs which would sit vertical. The door trim has a chamfer on one side and I wanted each pair of legs (left and right) to have this chamfer in the same orientation. Basically I kept the flat “back” of the trim on the inside of the stand.

Next I cut the angled legs, making sure I kept the chamfer profile in the right orientation. All the legs then had 45 degree points cut into them. This was mostly aesthetical.

Finally I painted the legs and the outer edge pieces of the new shelves with a white garden paint. I used this because I knew it would be hard-wearing, would cope with spilled water and because I had it around :D. Once the paint was dry I assembled by pre-drilling holes through the legs and screwing into the shelves. The final part was to fit a cross brace across the back of the unit to prevent any leaning. The shelves actually do a good job of preventing this but I had the timber trim around so I used it. I think it adds to the stability even more.

The whole thing was finished in an indoor clear wax.

Alternate finishing

My sister commissioned (ok, let’s not get fancy here, she asked me) to make one of the A-frame ones for her. The legs for this were ripped from a length of old skirting board and I routed the sides with a half round chamfer. She wanted the whole thing to be one colour to match her decor so I painted it in a light grey paint. As with the white one I used a garden paint here as it would give better protection against water drips etc. Once the paint was dry I completed the finish with the same indoor clear wax.

Creating the single stand

Once I had made the A frame stand I had some of the trellis left over so I cut an appropriate piece for a shelve, sanded it as above, and cut four legs from some spare battening (approx 38mm x 22mm) I had.

These pieces were painted in the same style as above, then I screwed the legs to the shelves with two screws per leg to prevent the legs from twisting. Again the whole thing was finished in a clear wax.

Lessons learned

There’s nothing I’d do differently here to be honest apart from wishing I’d made it sooner! The trickiest part was painting the sides of the shelves. I could have taken them apart but I wanted to keep the integrity as it was and I had a small enough brush so I chose not to.

Conclusion

This was an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours in the garden doing some woodworking. I enjoy building simple practical things and this is high on that list. I think the A-frame looks great and the bonus smaller one is really good too. Now I just need to get some more plants!