Painted Cinder Block Planters

Pinterest made me do it!

I’ve seen seen this pin on Pinterest in various forms – strawberry gardens, planters, raised beds, etc. As luck would have it, when we were cleaning up our backyard we found a few cinder blocks under our deck that we had used to keep the dogs from digging.  As Hubby was throwing them into the junk pile I immediately yelled, “NO – I’m going to turn those into planters!” to which he looked at me like I was nuts.

This is a great project to do with kids. Spray paint is such a simple, easy update to boring, gray cinder blocks ESPECIALLY if you have this handy gadget:

You slip it around the spray paint can and it makes it SO MUCH EASIER to get nice even strokes – even a 5 year old can do it!

The steps are pretty explanatory but I’ll offer a few insights and tips.

Tip #1: No need to clean the dirt of the blocks since it’s going to be covered by paint anyway

Tip #2: Cinder Blocks soak up ALOT of paint. I had to keep this in mind while Miss J was spraying to her heart’s content as we only had one can of pink paint.  See how porous  the stone is below:

Tip #3: Paint the best looking sides (smoothest) no one is going to care about the bottom of the Cinder Block is painted. . .who’s going to pick it up to look?

Tip #4: Let go. . .if your 5 year old wants to spray paint one side dark purple and the other light purple because “it will look good that way.” Who am I to argue? This project is for her and her alone.

and wouldn’t you know it?   She was right! It does look good!