First off, a big LWOTC welcome to new readers from Knock Off Decor! I was so excited to be featured and am thrilled to have y’all here! (for those of you wondering what I’m talking about, Knock Off Decor is an amazing blog featuring DIY projects that recreate upscale design on the cheap, right up my alley!. Click here to see Knock Off Decor’s feature on my DIY zebra rug, here to see my post about searching for inspiration, and here to see the rug I created with a canvas dropcloth).
I’ve been working on a little container garden for my front porch. I love the look of aged clay pots. I also prefer white pots to the orangey terra-cotta ones. Orange is not really my favorite color and I feel like it distracts from the plants a bit. Despite my distaste for orange, I’ve had this little terra-cotta pot for a few years now. It’s got some chips and dings but the color is, unfortunately, staying strong. I decided to speed things up a bit.
I wiped it down and let it dry out, then wiped on some white-ish paint (Quail Egg by Valspar) that I had on hand.
Then I wiped on a thin coat of some taupe mistint paint that I picked up for a $1 a few projects back.
I gave it a light sanding all over, then three more coats of white paint, sanding between coats. Taking the care to sand between coats is rather unlike me, but I really didn’t want it to look like it had obviously been painted.
After the final coat had dried, I gave it a pretty aggressive sanding and used the side of a paint stir stick to scratch it up.
Then I rolled it around in some compost until it looked nice and dirty.
My only regret is using semi-gloss instead of flat paint. I think even the subtle sheen is too much. I’m happy with the result, but I think I’ll keep experimenting with techniques to age the cheap-o clay pots from the nursery. I’m thinking some sort of wash may do the trick. Have any of y’all discovered a cheap, easy, and effective method for making new-ish pots look old? Or found an inexpensive source for old pots?
P.S. check out my previous post about this container garden here, and the rest of our porch and front yard here.
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Love the look! Years ago, I “painted” plain yogurt on my new clay pots and stuck them in dirt for a few days. They grunged up and it looked “natural”. Who knows what I was growing on the outside of them!
Wendy, what a great idea!!! I’m so trying that next time!
You might want to try staining them like the do with concrete. I don’t know if that was the look you were going for, they’d still be a brownish color of course, but it seems them would be a nice decorative take on the plain ole terra cotta color.