Painting Terracotta Pots

I think it is safe to say that I am officially a hoarder of houseplants; let’s call it my houseplant collectionyeah, that sounds better. If I were to count how many houseplants I have, I would come to a total of 20. If I were to count the ones still living out of those 20, I would come up with 18 and a half – not bad!

terra cotta paint
After some time, I started to run out of pots to place the plant collections in; there weren’t many plant vessels at thrift stores and a trip to IKEA seemed as daunting as Lewis and Clark’s expedition. A trip to Home Depot, though? That I could do. So I picked up two terracotta pots (one 4-inch and one 6-inch) for less than $3 and a test pot of paint for another $3 and got to work sprucing up standard terracotta pots.
diy paint terracotta
Before painting, I sealed the drainage holes with air-dry clay leftover from my Whimseybox and clay bead necklace. Since I am notorious for neglecting houseplants, I don’t really have a need for drain holes; I also didn’t feel like dishing out an addition $1 for a saucer.
terra cotta
After letting the air-dry clay dry overnight, I sealed the inside of the pots with spray Polycrylic to prevent any moisture seeping through to the paint. Once the Polycrylic was dry, I taped the terracotta pots using painters tape. I didn’t worry about achieving a perfectly straight line with the tape, I just followed the curve of the pot and firmly pressed on the tape to achieve a clean line. I then primed with Kilz Original and painted two coats with my sample paint (Snow Fall by Behr).
diy terra cotta paint
The purple succulent (which you may have spotted here) was a gift for my birthday last year and the pothos was free; they grow like weeds and are extremely hard to kill.
terra cotta succulent
I have always worried that painted terracotta would bubble with moisture but the paint seems to be doing fine. Now that I have braved the task of painting terracotta, I don’t think I will ever buy another glazed ceramic pot again. This also means that I have more houseplants to hoard collect – I better get started.

Share This Post

1 Comment

  1. I love how you painted the terracotta pots, and they only cost 3$ nice.

Leave a Reply