Poured Concrete Potter, version 1.0

This isn't the best picture but here is a small poured concrete potter we made. We stuck some sort of Japanese tree inside it, at least I think it is Japanese? Now those master gardening classes are looking very useful!

I swear we just put in that grass and it died due to flooding! lol, we need to step up our rain gutters.

Anyways, these are different from the previous concrete potters. First of all, it is one solid piece. Secondly, the sides are angled, which I really like. Thirdly, the mixture is different. I'd researched about people adding Perlite, finely ground styrofoam, and peat moss, among other things, as aggragate to the concrete/cement mix. It is simply a way to make it lighter, as standard concrete is really heavy. We had a look at peat moss at the store and it pretty much seemed like dirt to us. I remember watching Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe a while back where he was driving a truck that picked up roadkill from the freeways. They'd bring the animals :( to their lot, cover them in sawdust, and voila... several months later they were compost.

So... back to the potters. We added sawdust to the mix. We have tons of it from all the planing we've done. The sawdust absorbed a lot of water which made it a bit difficult to mix, but the finished piece is significantly lighter.

We greased up the forms very well using some VERY old cooking oil (circa 2001, amazing what you find deep in the cupboards) but as you can see it did come out rough in a few places. We are going to try sanding the forms first, which we should have done anyway but hindsight is always 20/20. We do like the rough look but there are 2 places where huge chunks came out. Still, the piece has lasted a couple weeks now and is still curing.

We have another kind of plywood with a backing on it that should make the concrete come out ultra smooth, he calls it glass. I am excited to work on those ones :)

Time to get in the garage and finish off that gardening bench! Have to cut some planks for the bottom, finish the tray, and sand sand sand.

I decided I don't get to share my cat Butters often enough, so maybe from now on I'll end with a nice picture of him.

Approx. 10 days old. We found him when his eyes had just opened, a bit crusty in the left one! He still has that pink toy too :)

<3

A Gardening Bench, in processu

Sometimes I ask myself, *WHY* do you keep posting things before they are done? Well I just get super excited is all, and this thing is about 90% done anyway.

:) It's a gardening table! The bottom is a shelf for whatever, and the top will have a bottom onto it. That's where the soil goes. I remember planting my mom's orchids and we had this tub where we mixed the soil with the bark together. So you pour whatever you want into that big tray, mix it up, then there's this thingamajig that slides across the top of the table. You put the pot there, fill it up, and... ya!

Photos taken with iPhone4

:) It's redwood. He was originally going to nail the bottom in, but I told him we should leave it as planks that sit onto the little railing. That way if it starts getting too muddy you can take em off and hose the whole thing down.

Close-up:

The legs are at 45 degrees. The planks and such are set in with dado cuts. Basically its a saw blade that's extra wide. Actually it was like 5 sawblades stuck together. Well I learned something new!

I'll have the finished one up soon, hopefully today!
:)