I have some nice wood boards from an old project that I would like to reuse for 2 projects:

• Windowsill planters in my bedroom
• Plant shelf / planter on my office desk

Right now I have my windowsill plants in plastic balcony planters. Needless to say, those planters are not very nice to look at. And my office plants are getting in the way, so they could use some shelves.

Board plans:

• ~106 cm board: office shelf left
• ~101 cm board: office shelf right
• ~101 cm board: office shelf middle + 22 cm (window left) + 15 cm (window right)
• ~133 cm board: 70 cm (window left) + 63 cm (window right)
• ~106 cm board: window left
• ~101 cm board: 15 cm (window right) + 22 cm (window left) + leftover

Office shelf plan has gotten a little bigger (but simpler) than my previous idea: just a board in each window, connected by a diagonal board in the middle, supported by a beam under it.

It’s just resting on the window frames. I measured it well so I could wedge it between the leftmost and rightmost window posts which means it feels solid. :) KISS meant that I actually found the motivation to make & finish it, instead of overthinking but not actually making anything.

Next up: rightmost windowsill planter for my room. It looks simple enough, but getting it to fit on a 14 cm windowsill when the nursery pots are 11 cm square and the wood I want to use is 2.5 cm is a bit of a challenge.

I want more plants in our lab office, but I don’t want to clutter my desk too much. I’ve already found a way to suspend some plants from the ceiling, but I also want to reuse some old / damaged lab glassware as planters and I don’t want to hang those.

My desk is in a corner with two windows overseeing the lab. Both windows have a small ledge, so I’m thinking of putting a shelf onto them. I could make it mostly out of reused wood from the lab, e.g. wood that was used for shipping some of our machines.

I think the weight on top will keep everything in place, but I want to secure the thing to be sure. I don’t think I’ll be allowed to drill into the window frames. I guess I could wedge something between the frame on the long side, so the shelf can’t move. Maybe I can use bolts in T-nuts to push into the steel frames on both sides and wedge it that way? Or perhaps a very strong magnet on both ends to make sure the thing doesn’t slide off?