Timber offcut wall niche planter box

If you've ever renovated an old house you'll know how weird and wonderful they can be! Our home had a fair few quirks once we started ripping walls down and measuring up for the extension. One of the biggest dramas (because there is always drama of some kind during a renovation!) was that the centre of our house was not quite the centre of the house. In fact, it was out by 10cm (that'd be 100mm in tradie speak. I'm still getting my head around talking in millimetres!). It doesn't sound like a huge amount but when you're lining up the steel posts that need to reach from the foundation all the way up to the centre of the roof - seven metres higher - it is a royal pain in the butt and meant a whole lot of mucking about with various components of the extension being increased by tiny increments so the centre of the extension lined up with the centre of the existing house. They got it to work, but it left us with an extra thick wall - two and a half times thicker than a normal wall. So, as we've done with all little hiccups throughout our renovations, we just made it work. And we thought a nice deep niche would be a good way to highlight what would otherwise be considered a bit of a flaw.

And when Steve brought some decking offcuts home from a job, I got to thinking: wouldn't this beautiful wide-planked spotted gum wood look smashing as a planter box in our niche? Yes, my thoughts said, yes it would.

So I looked around for something to fit the space and found an el cheapo $5 plastic planter from The Reject Shop which miraculously fit onto the ledge. Steve worked his magic with some mitre cuts and whipped me up this lovely wooden surround which now houses a very thriving Sansevieria Plant. I can easily slip it out to give it some extra light should the need arise. 

I sanded the timber really lightly and gave it a bit of a rub down with some homemade beeswax polish and it's been perfectly perfect ever since. And MOST importantly, I haven't killed my plant. This is quite the news! Of course I now have a list as long as my to-do list of things to make with decking offcuts (and my to-do list is reaaallllly long). Stay tuned!