Adding Accents to Outdoor Projects

When I designed this planter, lot of things I really like about it. To the great height it's gonna make it really easy to work on my tomato plants when they're in here. One of the things I don't like about it is that it's got these butt joints on the corners. I can very easily see the screws that were used to put everything together. It just doesn't look good. The other thing I thought about is it'd be cool to just have some accents on here. I love the look of wood and when this gets a little exterior preservative on it, the Cedar is gonna look great. But it's always nice to add an accent. So that led me to the idea of let's get an outside corner on here. That's gonna cover these up and before it goes on it can get painted a cool color, that's gonna add a really nice accent to this. So a couple things are going here. One is, this is a planter, it's gonna be full of dirt, there's gonna be a lot of moisture here. So we do wanna make sure that glue selection is the correct selection. So make sure you're using a good waterproof not water resistant. We want a waterproof glue here because of the environment under which this planter is gonna live. So waterproof glue. Now, what I did to make up my corners was I took Cedar one by fours and I ripped them on the table saw with a 45 degree cut on each one. So they're both cut the same, they're the same width. That 45 degree corner's gonna let me put them together just like that. Easiest way to do this is with a vice. Now just like we have the right glue for exterior applications, we want the right fastener. I'm shooting a galvanized staple here. So that's also gonna hold up in the outside weather. Now this is pretty cool so far but right now we've got a real sharp outside corner here. And what my concern is, is that over time as we work around the planter, rub up against it, maybe tools bang against it we're gonna knock that corner off. So I'm gonna go ahead and knock it off right now just by using a block plane. I'm gonna take that sharp edge off the corner. And for the accent part I'm gonna get a coat of paint on this. One of the things I learned early in my woodworking career is that if you have a perfect outside corner, in other words a perfect 90 degrees paint doesn't like to stick to it. If we ease that corner just a little bit, paint's gonna have a much better chance of holding on. So get a coat of paint on this, and then we can have a look at what it's gonna look like on that planter. Let me catch you up on how I got this far with my accent corners. What I did, glued them together, took that outside corner off with the block plane. Then using a miter saw I produced these chamfers on the top and on the bottom then got a nice coat of paint on everything. It's so much easier to paint these before they go on, that way I know I'm not gonna get paint here where I don't want it. Now they're ready to install, so I'm back to my waterproof glue again. I'm gonna put this on so that, that top chamfer ends just right below the little radius on my frame. Few staples. All the staples are doing is acting like little clamps to hold it until the glue dries, 'cause it's really all about the glue. This does a great thing for me. It accents the corner, looks much better than just having that butt joint out here. The green paint itself has a great contrast against the Cedar. It's also gonna reinforce the corner because since we've got this glued together and this glued together, we really solidified this corner so it can't possibly blow out when we've got this full of dirt and moisture and tomato plants. So accenting your outdoor projects like this very simple to do, and really adds a nice touch. Make sure you're using the right fasteners, the right glue, everything is gonna come together just great.