I had high hopes for today’s post. I thought I had learned from my mistakes enough to get this one right. You were supposed to stop by today and see a black, concrete planter on our front porch freshly adorned with festive orange mums.
Not so much.
Instead of being stuffed with fall flowers, this planter is stuffed with the remains of its own side: a casualty caused by attempting to remove the inner mold with perhaps a bit too much force. Just a bit.
The first time I tried making one of these planters, I couldn’t remove the metal letter from the mold and it got stuck in the concrete, permanently reminding me of my misjudgment. What’s worse, the concrete never settled properly around the “V” the first time I made it so it looks sort of… off.
Ah ha. But, this time. This time I was going to get it right. I used a wooden letter that I could attach to the mold with screws. I also abandoned my snobbish preference for melamine over regular plywood. So, some background… I made concrete countertops back in the day with melamine forms and they worked great. So great, in fact, that I poo-poo’d any suggestion of using anything except melamine for any sort of concrete mold.
The instructions for the planter, however, specified regular plywood covered with aluminum foil. The melamine worked well, except it wasn’t reusable. It got destroyed when I tried to pop the planter out of the mold. So, this time I opted for the tin foil covered plywood as per the Popular Mechanics instructions in the spirit of trying something new.
The instructions didn’t call for pink kitchen gloves either, but… hey.
I had my lovely assistant spray down the interior of the mold with non-stick cooking spray.
After mixing up the concrete, this time with 1.5 bottles of the charcoal colorant, I was happy with how it was going.
After letting the planter cure overnight, I slowly popped off the sides. The letter actually released pretty easily. So far so good. A few minutes later all I had to do was “slip” out the inner box from the mold and I’d be done. I even went out and bought a couple bags of topsoil to accompany our new mums.
So, needless to say, the inner box didn’t slip out of anything. I was really surprised at how well the concrete adhered to the plywood considering it was all covered with tin foil and then sprayed down with Pam. Then again, they do make skyscrapers out of this stuff, so.. we’ve got that going for us.
After a few minutes of trying to yank this plywood box out of the planter by hand, my friend Mr Crowbar stopped by. We got to talking and then one thing led to another… yada, yada, yada… and then before you know it…
Whoops.
Did you notice how much tin foil is stuck on the outside of the planter (see the first photo)? Unbelievable.
Here’s the good news. I only spent around $10 for concrete and the black dye. I had the plywood leftover from other projects, which would’ve been another $30 or so (more for melamine).
So, the important thing here is that we all learn from our mistakes. I learned that concrete is incredibly fond of everything I stick in it and it doesn’t want to give it up. I also learned that melamine is probably way better for this. So I can go back to being a melamine snob about my one successful concrete project (the countertops).
More importantly, I learned that Lisa is ready for me to switch gears and start on our TV console for our sitting room. I’ll probably be back out again next year though, once again in search of my white whale… wasting time and concrete.
Do you know what a PIA it is to throw out an 80 lb planter?
Before you go, here are those orange mums we bought.
AND the original planter…
Have you had any DIY fails on your end recently? Have you also pursued a project with blind ambition to the point of madness? Was it also a concrete project?
I feel inspired to share more of my DIY fails. This may become a regular thing.
