Concrete Plant Stand

A few weeks ago I was invited to the birthday of a friend and one of her wishes was something to decorate her apartment with. After a bit of research on Pinterest we decided to make her a kind of stool with a concrete top which can be used to put a planter on top. Especially with a succulent or a cactus this looks really nice and modern.

After the plant stand was done, not only my friend but also my mom really liked the result and so I decided to make another one of them, implementing a few improvements I had figured out after making the first one.

Material-wise there are really not that many special things required to make this project. The most important part is a bucket to pour the concrete into. I simply used a cheap 10 liter bucket from a local hardware store because it had a relatively flat bottom. Any imperfections or ridges in the bottom will later show on the top of the concrete surface.

Speaking about concrete, of course you will also need a few kilos of concrete, depending on the diameter of your bucket and the thickness you want your concrete top to be. I decided to mix some standard cement with very fine sand in a 1:1 ratio. As the last main ingredient you will need three sections of wooden rods. Mine are 28mm (~1.25″) in diameter. The length again is totally dependant on personal preference. Additionally, I used a bit of clear packing tape, about 50cm of garden wire and 3 40mm screws and some water.

I started the project out by preparing the 3 sections of wooden rod. Since I had had issues with cracks in the concrete due to the wood soaking up water I decided to put clear packing tape around one end of each rod to protect it from the water.

Since this way the bond between the concrete and the legs wouldn’t be as strong as it would be otherwise, I then screwed a 40mm long screw through the same end of the rod which would hold the legs firmly within the cured concrete.

I then connected the three legs to one another using long piece of garden wire. This wire structure has multiple purposes:
First of all, it makes sure that the legs will later stay at an even distance to one another and form an equilateral triangle. In this case I decided to give the legs a distance of roughly 10cm to each other. Secondly, the wires will strengthen the bond between the legs and the concrete even further.

Now that the leg assembly had been prepared it was time to start preparing the concrete.

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to get some standard cement and very fine sand separately and mix them in a ratio of 1:1 which would result in a strong concrete top and also form a very smooth concrete surface later on.

To the mixture of cement and sand I slowly added more and more water until there were no dry parts left over.

After thorough mixing, I carefully filled the concrete over into the bucket which I wanted to use as the mold, making sure not to get any concrete on the sides of the bucket or spill concrete on the floor.

Next comes a very important step with any concrete project: Removing air bubbles.
Since there are lots of air bubbles trapped inside the concrete right after pouring it, which would show as holes on the surface of the concrete top, the concrete needs to be vibrated and shook as long as possible to remove them. Vibrating the concrete helps the bubbles rise to the top of the concrete and guarantee a flawless concrete surface.

At this point it was time to place the leg assembly into the concrete.
I made sure to give the legs an equal distance from the edge of the concrete. When trying to push the legs down into the concrete it helped to lightly vibrate the concrete again, making sure to not push the legs all the way through to the bottom of the bucket. Also, I divided the rim of the bucket into thirds beforehand and aligned the legs with my previously made marks so that they were all spaced apart evenly. After I was happy with the placement, I secured the legs to the rim of the bucket with a bit more tape, laid a few pieces of cling film over the top of the bucket to avoid it drying out too quickly and then set the whole thing aside to cure.

Around 36-48 hours later the concrete was ready to be demolded. I simply pulled on the legs and the concrete released from the bucket perfectly.
Since there were a few sharp edges and a bit of uneveness left on the bottom of the concrete top, I quickly went over it with a bit of sand paper, which cleaned that up quite nicely. I also at this point removed the excess tape left on the legs towards the concrete. I would definitely use this method again since it prevented the legs from coming in contact with any water and there were no signs of any cracks in the concrete this time, with the legs still feeling absolutely stable within the concrete.

Additionally, since the legs were not perfectly the same length or aligned with precision, I leveled the top of the concrete surface by shimming each leg. I then measured the offset length for each leg, marked a cut-line on each leg at identical height and parallel to the top concrete surface and sawed the very tip off of each of the three legs.

The very last step remaining before completing this project was to paint a bottom section of the legs.

In order to get some even and sharp paint edges, I marked and taped off the lower third of each leg and then painted them with a brush and some white paint.

I am extremely happy with the result I achieved on this project and I think my mom likes it just as much.

The improvements on this second version are significant and I am much more confident in the integrity of the concrete top this time.

Have fun building your own version of this really simple, yet unique home-decor item :)