Earning the Urns

While we were at a huge antique show in Northern Kentucky back in about 2005 we became smitten with a pair of cast iron urns. Thinking they were a bargain, we hauled the 200 pound pair to the car and drove them back home. Later, we learned that they were more than three times the "going" price (rotten sellers and uninformed buyers) for similar urns.

We nonetheless wanted to fill them to overflowing with plants and set them out front on each side of the porch stairs.

Since we lived in a less than stellar neighborhood (all the best houses are in rough neighborhoods it seems) we developed a hidden way to secure them to the ground so no one would run off with a 100 pound urn in the middle of the night. There they sat for about a year -- until we moved.

We unhitched the urns from their concrete bases and moved them to the new (old) house's 3-car garage. Which is just where they sat until we moved again and put them into the newer (old) houses garage.

Well, since we had the house painted a couple weeks ago, and I have been working on restoring the lattice panels of under the porch, it was a perfect time to add yet another job to the "honey do" list.

Last week I installed the 2 brick-and-cement bases for the urns while they were being cleaned, scraped, sanded and painted from flat, lifeless ivory, to high gloss deepest black-green. This weekend the final coats of paint went on and the cement bases were cured and ready to hold the urns in place. A few "heave-ho's" and they were squared up and secured in place. Even the plants were readied earlier so within a few minutes the urns were overflowing with ivy and "elephant ears."

They look great and we hope they stay around for years and years and years to come.

Fresh cement curing under a few grocery bags to keep it wet.

The bases were sized so the cement is not visible.