How to make a DIY wooden plant stand for indoors

An interior plant stand is a great way to raise the profile of your plants. It provides a platform to secure your plant and provides a tiered level to add a bit of variety and volume to your interior decor. Plants can also benefit from being lifted off the floor as it can make them sit closer or more comfortably within natural light. We tend to use a lot of plants stands around our house for these purposes and in general, we just feel like it looks nicer. When grouping a number of plants in the same area the tiered levelling adds a nice dimension to the area.

small plant stands

In this post, I want to show you how to quickly and easily make your own wooden plant stand. A DIY plant stand made by yourself will not only be rewarding but can be a great way to get into woodworking. You’ll only need a basic set of tools and some wood. Once you’ve made one you can get creative and explore new ways of making and creating your own designs.

Selecting the perfect indoor plants for the plant stand is all part of the fun. There are so many different species to choose from and you can create some amazing focal displays when grouping them together.

Finding the materials for your DIY plant stand

You can find the right materials for this project in a number of places. Your local DIY store will stock timber and in some cases, some nice wooden tree rounds, which can also be known as tree slices. If you can’t find these in a local DIY store then Etsy Marketplace has plenty from handmade sellers all over the world.

Tree rounds etsy 1
Tree rounds from Etsy Marketplace – Tower Farm Creations

You can shop around to find the best size for your project and if you don’t have any luck online you should pop into your local sawmill to see what they are stocking. A sawmill is a great place to pick up some good quality tree rounds and you will be able to ask for some specific sizes if they aren’t currently in stock.

Try and make friends with the local woodworking communities as these are great resources for a cheap and high-quality piece of wood. Many of them will have workshops full of off-cuts and spare pieces of wood that you could get for free and pay small fees for.

The legs can be constructed using a number of different methods, but you will want to make sure they are secure and stable. The plant stand might get mistaken for a small stool one day and someone might sit on it!

I personally prefer a tampered, splayed leg for my designs but the choice is up to you. You can buy this style of leg ready-made or make your own from scratch. If you decide to make your own from scratch you will likely need specialist woodworking tools such as a lathe or table saw. By using a lathe you can turn wood into tapered spindles.

woodworking lathe

Whether you decide to buy some ready-made legs or make your own try and match the wood to the top piece. This won’t always be possible but it will look nicer when crafted from a single piece. If you go to a sawmill it is much more likely you can find the same types of wood for the whole project.

Here are some pre-made legs that could be ideal for this project.

etsy splayed tampered wooden legs
Wooden round tapered leg – Brit Wood Ltd

Building your DIY wooden plant stand

Let’s start with the top, the wooden tree round. This lovely piece of wood first needs to be dried. Ideally, this should be done in a kiln, but if you don’t have access to one it can be dried naturally in your house. Place it near a fire or heater for a few weeks to ensure the moisture content is below 15%.

Once dry it will need to be sanded. Starting with a coarse piece of sandpaper, like an 80 grit, remove any lumps and bumps to a nice flat and smooth surface. Then sand again using a 120 grit and finish off with a 240 grit. This should leave the piece perfectly smooth.

Now it’s time to attach the legs. If you are using pre-made legs these can simply be screwed onto the bottom of the wood round. Mark out three equal locations around the edge of the wood and line up the fixing plates. Mark out where the holes need to go for the screws and drill some small pilot holes. if you have 4mm screws, drill a 3mm pilot hole.

Now secure your legs onto the round and check the stand is level. A spirit level should be used on a flat surface. Adjust the legs as required until the stand is level.

plant stands

If you’ve decided to make your own legs, then these can be attached in a similar way. Alternatively, you can use a doweling system to attach them to the top of the stand. drilling a suitable hole in both the top of the leg and the underside of the round will allow you to fix the legs in place. Wood glue should be used to fix each leg in place. This method alone might not be strong enough to support any weight so it’s best to brace each leg together. A piece of dowel or another smaller piece of wood can be used for this purpose.

This concludes this simple plant stand build. Happy building everyone.

You could also consider making a plant stand from reclaimed wood. This is a great project and the design options are endless.

DIY plant stands reclaimed wood

Leave a Reply