DIY Plant Stand–ANYONE Can Build!

When Corey from Tiny Sidekick was coming up with a woodworking plan for these West Elm inspired plant stands, she wanted it to be a project anyone could do. Thus, this simple wood plant stand was born!

It’s perfect for adding style to your potted plants both indoors and out and giving them a little boost off the ground.

Corey says, “They don’t have the exact details of the inspiration but at less than $10 a stand compared to over $125 for the original I’ll take mine any day!”

Keys to the Project

It doesn’t take much to make these simple but intriguing plants stands. Check out the basic materials and then the few easy-to-follow steps that Corey has laid out.

Supplies You’ll Need

Nothing fancy here, except your general woodworking materials: wood, saw, glue, wooden dowels, sandpaper and stain.

Okay, fancy is a relative term in this case because Corey did use a Kreg Jig to create her “pocket holes”. If you’re a woodworking enthusiast and engage in DIY wood pieces often enough, you probably have one of these helpful little jig systems. If not, don’t worry it isn’t completely necessary.

Also, the pots aren’t officially part of the plant stand itself but what’s a stand without a great pot and plant in it? So, let’s add pot to the DIY wooden plant stand list.

Hint: Corey picked her cool, shiny pots up at a Home Goods store.

Follow These Steps

Let’s start with the wood: You need four pieces for the legs and three pieces for the scaffold (platform).

All pieces for the legs can come from 3/4″ x 3/4″ square hardwood. You’ll cut these first.

For the platform, you’ll be making an “X” with your 1″ x 2″ pieces made from pine.

The biggest tip here is to find the width of your pot (or desired pot size), and make sure your pieces conform to that.

Corey has some pretty detailed instructions for this part, so just read them a few times before you start cutting and drilling.

Putting It All Together

Once you have your pieces cut, it’s time to drill the holes to hold everything together. The holes are made with a drill using the Kreg Jig.

You can set the jig’s width setting based on the length of dowels you’re going to use to connect the pieces together. Corey just followed the screw length chart here.

When you’re ready to insert your dowels, it’s pretty easy going. Just slip them in, add some of your glue, clamp and wait overnight before moving on to the staining.

Finish Up with Your Stain

Corey used a Dark Walnut stain from Minwax to color her wooden plant stands. The dark color really looks great with the white pot, then the green accents of the live plant pouring over. Of course, you can choose whatever colors you want here!

To apply the stain to the hardwood and pine, you can simply dip and soak a rag like a terry cloth into the stain and smooth it on. Just rub in and be careful not to saturate your rag too much.

Corey recommends dabbing the stain on at first so as not to create a puddle of it on the surface of the wood.

Final Touches

Corey didn’t mention, but if your plant stands are going outside at all it would be a good idea to finish with a poly or a wax. This will help protect against any moisture and also help keep your plant stand easy to clean and free of small scratches.

One final touch would be to tack in some feet on the bottom of the legs. That slight lift they provide kind of completes the whole look. Try felt as it can confirm slightly to textures say if you have these plant stands outside on a deck or natural stone patio.

Corey was inspired by the Mid-Century Turned Leg Planters from West Elm. Unless you absolutely have to have rounded legs, then I think Corey’s version is just as nice.

And just think…just as nice looking for a fraction of the cost!

Go to Tiny Sidekick for Corey’s easy woodworking tutorial. It was her first time using the Kreg Jig, and you can tell she had a terrific experience with it. And as such, she was happy to report and share her experience with it.

So, if you don’t have one yet, this sounds like a great first project to try it out with.

And as always, if you really want to get into woodworking and DIY’ing your own wood products, I recommend Ted’s Wordworking. There are countless plans you can make that don’t require expensive tools and gadgets. If you LOVE (and need) detailed instructions you’ll be in heaven with his stuff!

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