Our Current House
The Sandbox Chronicles: Part 2
Ready for the next chapter of our sandbox project? If you’re not, I can tell you one person who definitely was. Her name rhymes with Blara.
Here’s where we left off. Box built (more on that here) and awaiting sand. But in need of a cover first.
Having looked at a bunch of other DIY sandbox covers (from some of our inspiration tutorials – clockwise from top-left: Dana Made It, Small & Friendly, Modern Parents Messy Kids, Dover Projects) and based on our own experiences, we compiled a mental list of what we wanted (and didn’t want) out of our cover.
Our checklist was something like this:
- Should primarily keep out natural debris (leaves, acorns, etc) and animal “debris” (from neighborhood cats, birds flying by, etc).
- Should help keep water out, but we weren’t going to be crazy about making it completely airtight.
- Should be sturdy – so no tarps that could fly off or other plastic that might warp. Wood felt like our best bet.
- Shouldn’t be too heavy. If lifting it were a burden, we might be less inclined to use it.
So this is what we came up with. It doesn’t make much sense in it’s pre-constructed phase, but I promise it’ll all come together a bit later.
The concept for it was born from the fact that plywood was the cheapest way to cover such a big area (a 5 x 5 ft square, essentially) but my experience with plywood outdoors is that it can warp. So we decided to buy two 2 x 4″ plywood sheets with a frame of 1 x 8″ boards around it – both to add stability and to make it large enough to do the job. Plus since it’s right off of our patio we wanted it to look clean and finished and not like a plank of wood tossed haphazardly over a box.
Oh, and since one big 25 square foot cover threatened to be quite heavy – we decided to build it in two interlocking pieces. So here’s the frame for one side (I attached the frame boards using my Kreg jig). Hey look – it’s a C for Clara.
After building both frames and screwing the plywood to it from the underside, I stained both pieces with the same Behr waterproof Deck Stain in a “Natural” color that I used for the sandbox itself. It came out a bit streakier than I would’ve liked, but in my continued efforts to not stress about a sandbox I let it be (will Clara care about a less-than-perfect stain job? I certain hope not). Oh, and you’ll notice that one side has the board kinda dangling off the side. That’s a middle piece that I added to cover up some of the seam between the two sides. It’ll make more sense when you see it all in place in a few pics.
We could’ve just let the cover sit freely on the top of the box, but I opted to attach it with some hinges so that we wouldn’t have to carry the whole thing every time Clara wanted to play.
Plus, this meant the cover could rest against the fence rather than having to be stored somewhere else on the patio while the sandbox is in use. So I attached the other half of the hinge right to the top of the box itself.
While we’re on the subject of hardware, we also attached a matching handle on each side of the cover for easy grabbing. They actually polished things off a lot. Note to self: add hardware to stuff, it makes it look legit.
Here it is with the cover finished and attached, but I realize it’s a bit hard to see given the tree shadows…
…so let’s momentarily skip ahead to some pictures I took later in the day when the sun was starting to set. It’s not as pretty looking, but there aren’t those blotchy shadows going on. As for rain collecting on those panels, we’re going to see how it goes, but there are a couple of seams and cracks that should let it drain out well. So far (with very small rains) it has been fine. But if we have a gully washer and it’s an issue we’ll alter it with some drainage holes and report back!
And now you can see how each side can swing open to reveal the sandbox beneath.
Ta-dah! Oh and you’ll notice that the rain barrel has a fully fused plastic top on it (so there’s no danger of Clara somehow climbing on top of it and falling into water). Sometimes from pics of the side, folks assume that a rain barrel is topless, but it’s closed and has very small mesh circles where the water filters through (to keep mosquitoes out).
And on the subject of child safety, you may be thinking the same thing we thought – “Ack! What if Clara pulls the cover down on herself?!” So we installed a little safety latch to keep that from happening. It’s a bit of a contraption (again, me over-complicating things) but it’s basically an eye-hook screwed into the underside of the cover with a piece of chain attached via carabiner. When the cover is closed it sits hidden under the box, but when resting against the fence we can hang the chain over a hook we screwed into the fence post.
These may look dainty, but they’re actually nice and heavy duty. We tugged on them more than a few times just to be sure they’re really in there. So when the sandbox cover is open and locked in this position, it’s not going anywhere. It’s especially nice that the hinges rotate more than 90 degrees since the cover can lean back on the fence for more security (if it were frozen in the air at a 90 degree angle we’d worry it might be more apt to fall closed, but when leaning back against the fence and hooked into place, it’s nice and secure). So now that we’ve covered how the cover works, I’m going to rewind to a time when there wasn’t sand yet in the box. A much sunnier, distractingly shadow-y time.
Even though I showed you a few extra bags of play sand that we had sitting around from last year, I still bought about 15 more because I knew it would take a lot to fill it up and give a decent amount depth for Clara to really get her dig on.
I call this picture “the inaugural sand” – my sand box equivalent to a ceremonial cornerstone or symbolic spike that connected the railroads. But it’s really just the first bag I dumped in there.
As I dumped bag after bag of sand, Clara stood patiently waiting for her cue to play. Patience isn’t always her strongest virtue, but I have to give her props for being a very calm lady in waiting this day. Look at her all poised and ready with her bucket and her shovel.
20 bags of sand later – we gave Clara the go ahead.
And the rest is history.
Think she likes it?
We’re just as happy about it. The location is perfect for letting her play in a contained area (the patio is fully fenced in) while allowing us to sit outside and try to get some work done in a nearby chair. Plus, it’s pretty shaded most of the day too.
I must admit, in addition to be a bit more complex than I had set out to make it – it also was a bit more expensive than I had prepared myself for. Both wood and sand really add up quickly, but after looking up other wood sandboxes (many which didn’t even come with a cover and were $180 or more, like this one from Target) I felt a lot better. Plus sandboxes don’t come with sand, so that’s always an added expense. Here’s our budget breakdown:
- Wood for 5 x 5′ box: $17
- Wood for 5 x 5′ cover: $38
- Stain: $22
- Weed block: $0 (leftover from last year)
- Hinges, handles & safety hardware: $21
- Sand: $48 (thanks to some leftover bags from last year)
- TOTAL: $146
Clara happily digging around for hours on end: priceless. And so ends the two-part saga that was…
OR DOES IT? Just when we thought our sandbox adventures had come to a close, something else happened. And it resulted in a little sandbox remix. More details tomorrow (we just have to edit the pics and write the post up). Then it’s really over. Whew. Who knew a simple sandbox would turn into a trilogy? In the meantime, have you added hardware to anything that suddenly felt more legit? I’m telling you, it’s a thing.
Pssst- To read The Sandbox Chronicles in their entirety, here’s Part 1 (about building the base of the box) and Part 3 (about swapping what we found out was unsafe sand for pea gravel).
The Sandbox Chronicles: Part 1
Building Clara a sandbox has been a project that was nearly a year in the making. Just check out this post about her first birthday party from last May (yes, our girl is a month away from being TWO). So much for “any day now.”
My excuse, well, our excuse is that we couldn’t figure out where we wanted it. We debated building one on wheels that could sit in the middle of the patio when in use (and be pulled out of the way and stored at all other times), but with so much land around us it felt like we should just find a permanent spot for one instead of making an eternally-rolling-around sandbox. I guess we just couldn’t commit to a spot, so Project Sandbox went on an 11 month hiatus. Although the play sand that we had already started stocking did come in handy when sandbagging our basement when Hurricane Irene swept through in August. Though it mostly just sat in a sad pile in the backyard… a symbol of a broken promise. Picture a single tear sliding down my cheek as I say that.
But our recent outdoor projects have given us renewed energy to actually get this baby done. More specifically, while tidying up the patio we uncovered the perfect sandbox spot. It had been hiding behind the now-deceased-and-therefore-removed rhododendron which made way for what is now a nice big open area that’s partially shaded by a pretty dogwood tree and adjacent to the patio. We instantly thought “hey, we could add a few stepping stones to lead Clara right to it from the patio, and it’ll be nice to have it placed within our small fenced-in side yard.” So we mulled it over for a little while longer and then decided that we weren’t getting any younger (nor was Clara) and this was THE place. Sold.
It might look like a small cramped corner of the side garden, but it’s actually a nice level 7 x 7′ area – perfect for housing something functional and fun for the bean.
Now we just had to figure out how we wanted to create this thing. I turned to Pinterest (yes, even I go to Pinterest sometimes even though I don’t have an account myself) for inspiration. There were lots of cute, ingenious, and creative incarnations of sandboxes – some very intricate, some pretty straightforward, all proof that there’s more than one way to skin this kitty. Here’s a snapshot of some of our favorites (sources clockwise from top-left: Dana Made It, Small & Friendly, Modern Parents Messy Kids, Dover Projects).
I knew I wanted something pretty uncomplicated. I’m great at making things harder on myself than necessary, so I was determined not to make a simple sandbox more intricate (or stressful) than it needed to be. But, you’ll see as I continue this post that I was only moderately successful at this. Anyways, the first step was clearing the area of – surprise! – liriope. Fortunately it wasn’t too thick here so it was a pretty quick task.
Based on the available space, we decided we wanted a roughly 5′ x 5′ sandbox. Not huge, but large enough that Clara and a friend/cousin or two could play without knocking heads. So I measured it out and used some orange flags that the previous owner left in the basement (they marked off our property line during closing) to mark my corners.
I then dug out the area about 6″ so that the sandbox could actually be sunk in the ground. I figured this would achieve a couple of things. For one, it would help keep the box in one place (and keep its shape). But more importantly, it would allow us to make a deep enough box to allow for some good sand-digging (Clara exhibits signs of becoming a future archeologist thanks to her extreme love of digging). Sure we could’ve just made a taller box – but we wanted the sides to be low enough that Clara could get in and out without any trouble.
The hole wasn’t perfectly level throughout, but I did want to make sure all four sides were level so that my boards would sit square and even. Speaking of the boards, these are 2 x 10″ pieces of framing lumber (the same stuff we used for our office desktop). We didn’t get pressure treated wood since we learned that a lot of it is treated with chemicals that aren’t meant for children to be in regular contact with (more on that here). So we decided regular framing lumber that we could seal for outside use would do the trick.
I bought two 10 ft pieces and had them cut into 5 ft lengths in the store (for about $17 total). We chose it because it’s thicker than your average board so I thought it’d be nice and sturdy – and maybe wide enough for a toddler’s bottom to sit on (we have both since perched our own bottoms on it and it’s not too bad, although we prefer to sit in a nearby patio chair that we just turn to face the box). We decided not to do any actual seats or overhangs for one singular reason. KILLER SPIDERS. I had distinct memories of those being incessantly creepy and spider-webby in the sandbox that I had growing up (picture thick webs with sinister eight-legged things lurking under every overhang). Plus we always just sat right inside of it and played, so they never got used.
To seal and extend the life of our framing lumber we used some waterproof deck stain on it. We picked up some basic Behr stuff at Home Depot (for about $25). We chose the “Natural” stain after opting not to paint or otherwise add color to the sandbox. We were tempted to give it a cool pattern or color (we loved the striped example from Pinterest), but we figured that effort would be lost after the general wear and tear of being outside would make it dull and dirty (we intentionally buy wood, ORB, or black outdoor furniture/planters most of the time since after a rain the dirt speckles that pop up and are visible on painted items bum us out). Plus over time this finish will match the fence we added around the patio – so it’ll hopefully just be a neutral color that repeats itself around the garden so it fits right in.
Here are the four sides all stained and drying (they’re a little orange here, but look more natural outside – especially after we spreaded some rich dark mulch around them a bit later). The four pieces in the back were some scrap framing lumber that I had from another project (our desk perhaps?) that I cut into short corner posts on my table saw.
I did two coats of the stain on all sides of them as recommended on the can and let them dry over night. Then it was time to start assembling things so it no longer looked like I was digging a grave for a very skinny and very box-y creature.
Before installing the boards, I put down some Weed Block as a base. This would help block weeds (duh) while also creating a barrier between the sand and the dirt. Although we made a sandbox cover, we wanted to be sure to use something that allowed air and especially moisture/water to pass through so that our sandbox didn’t get all clammy. In most cases, breathable = infinitely less nasty.
I had lots of leftover Weed Block from an old mailbox project so I laid two layers (going opposite directions) to help minimize sand-to-dirt contact. I held it down in the corners with some garden staples.
As far as construction, I ended up mimicking the design of Modern Kids Messy Parents‘ sandbox the most – thought instead of building my box and laying it into the hole, I built mine in place (I worried about being able to maneuver the already-constructed box as easily).
The basic system here is that I dug a stake into each corner. They were only 4 or 5″ inches into the ground, so ultimately they didn’t provide that much stability (that instead came from the boards themselves). So mainly the stakes were just helpful in providing a common place for each board to be attached.
After digging each stake in (and packing some dirt around it before recovering the area with Weed Block) I used a square ruler to make sure my corners were 90-degrees.
Then I drilled in some 2.5″ exterior decking screws – one from the outside and one from the inside – to attach the board to the stake.
It wasn’t the fastest system in the world, I’ll admit (since there was lots of triple checking level and square corners) but I slowly started to get what looked like a sand box. Minus the sand.
Here’s the completed box. I was DYING to just dump sand into it and invite Clara out to play, but there was still more to do to make sure it was toddler-ready. Sigh.
First I had to backfill the sides with dirt so that there wasn’t a moat around the edge. You’ll also note in this picture that I placed the board on top of the Weed Block fabric (see it peeking out there). That was to help it stay in place even better.
Here it is with dirt all filled in around it. Of course now it looks like it’s begging for sand inside and mulch outside. That would still have to wait because there’s still one more critical element to this sand box…
…A COVER! You know to keep neighborhood cats from thinking it’s a giant litter box. And to keep birds from dropping some presents if they’re flying by. But not just any cover. One with hardware that hinges open and can be secured so we don’t worry about Clara pulling it closed on herself. Yup, Sherry and I did some brainstorming, and we had some fun coming up with a cover that adds safety and function to the whole shebang. And since this post is already too long, I’m gonna put the details about making the cover in a second post for you this afternoon. Hence the title of The Sandbox Chronicles. It’s not quite Narnia, but it’s a heartwarming story of a girl and her toy trucks.
You’re probably already getting a sense that I made it more complicated than it needed to be (you’d be right), but ultimately we’re really happy with how it all turned out. And since I feel bad about writing a whole post with no shots of the sandbox actually in use, how’s this for a sneak preview?
Anyone have any sandbox stories / memories / projects to share with the group? I know I loved mine growing up, but Sherry didn’t have one so I wonder if they’re a regional thing. Have you taken 11 months to get something done that you thought was “just around the corner?” Let’s commiserate.
Psst- We had fun weighing in on some open shelving pro/con chatter over here.
Pssssst- To read The Sandbox Chronicles in their entirety, here’s Part 2 (about building the lid which secures to the fence for safety reasons) and Part 3 (about swapping what we found out was “bad sand” for pea gravel).
Do The Path
I’m not good at math, but digging up a path, I can do. And John’s good at both. Overachiever, much? Anyway, this is just a photo from before we started working on the garden beds on either side of the porch (more on that here and here) so you can see how that clump of bushes in front of the porch was kind of weird and reversed. Don’t you think plants on either side of the porch would look nice and balanced while the path to the door and the porch should be more open and airy instead of crowded by overgrown boxwoods? It was like things were backwards. Business in the middle instead of business on the sides. It was a bush mohawk.
And when a certified landscape expert (more on that here) confirmed that those boxwoods were on their last legs anyway due to some bare spots and diseased tops, we were even more sure we had to open things up so the path to the door felt less crowded (don’t worry, we still tried to transplant as many as we could to see if they’ll make it in a less in-yo-face location).
See what we mean? On moving day we dragged things down this path approximately 5,000 times with the bushes reaching out and grabbing us the whole time.
They just don’t have any understanding of personal space. We actually learned from our little landscaping consultation that pathways are ideally four feet wide so two people can walk next to each other or carry large items without getting bush-groped. So the least we can do is make this path feel as wide as possible by opening things up.
Operation Clear The Path began with us digging out the azaleas that were completely crowding the porch (their base was literally just inches from the brick side of the porch). That garden bed is tiny, and no place for large bushes like that. They weren’t too bad to dig up since the ground was wet from rain the day before – and we transplanted them on the side yard that we’re trying to naturalize so it’ll have some pretty pops of color down there and they won’t be nearly as cramped.
Next it was time to dig up those boxwoods along the other side of the path. They were a bit more challenging to get up, but again thanks to moist soil from previous rain, it wasn’t too bad. It probably took about fifteen to twenty minutes per bush and there were eight of them, so this was an almost three hour process done over two Clara naps. A few of the bushes were too far gone so we just cut them out with the reciprocating saw and then dug up their roots since that was easier if there was no saving them.
But the ones that looked like they might stand a fighting chance of survival also got transplanted in the side lot near the azaleas.
Then it was time to do something we’ll probably be doing until the end of time at this house. Digging up more of that ubiquitous liriope that abounds. This stuff was actually growing up and over the pavers – making the path look a foot narrower thanks to at least six inches of encroachment on each side. See the root system of the one below actually covering half of that paver?
We knew digging them out would widen the path again (no more bushes or grasses trying to tickle people’s legs as they walked by), but we really weren’t expecting just how much of a difference clearing out this small bed that once housed giant azaleas and endless monkey grass would make. The porch could finally breath again!
We went ahead and mulched it all the way down, just to keep weeds from springing up all willy-nilly, but we do plan to plant some small pretty flowering perennials or annuals eventually. Just holding out to find some we really like that will do well in such a narrow spot (we’re sure there are a ton of options, so we’ll just see what we like and resist the urge to try to settle too quickly on something “meh”).
And we can’t even explain how much of a difference it made to clear out those big clumpey and crowded boxwoods that were on the other side of the path. Are you ready for the biggest landscaping difference we’ve seen this spring? Check out the path before we cleared it out…
… and after:
Doesn’t the path itself look about twice as wide and a lot more open? Don’t your eyes travel to pretty things, like the woods beyond the path, and the open and much more welcoming porch? We have plans to seed the entire left side of the path so that grass just comes right up to it (nothing big will pen you in, so the path will look nice and wide and welcoming). We have a ton of other areas to garden around the perimeter of the house, so we’ll appreciate just having to mow that strip of land instead of needing to plant/mulch/prune/weed another bed. So picture that big patch of brown as green as the grass beyond it. Can you see it?
And here’s the difference from the other side. Before:
And after:
And now for some shots from a bit further away for ya. First here’s how this angle looked back when we moved into our house (what house?):
And here are how things are looking these days:
Of course we still have about 679 other things on our exterior to-do list (see more of that here) but we’re inching towards something that looks a whole lot better than what we started with.
Ah landscaping, you take a while and make our arms and back ache, but you’re worth it.
As for how long clearing the path took in total, the entire project – including the time it took to transplant things in other areas – was around 8 hours. We started it about a week ago, which is why we couldn’t show wide shots of the garden beds on each side of the porch (since that path was torn up/in progress – and we wanted to get ‘er done before taking pics from further away). That last shot from the street deflates us further emphasizes how much more we still have to tackle, but it’s definitely nice to look at the before pic to remember how far we’ve come in the time that we’ve been here. Slowly, but surely.
What are you guys doing when it comes to the path to your front door? Is it open and clear, packed with flowering plants? Full of overgrown bushes you’re planning to relocate as well? Tell $herdog all about it.
Frosting, Tanking, And Sucking It Up
If that title doesn’t make you curious about what this post is about then, well, then I give up. Just kidding. I don’t. And this post is about three bathroom updates, the first of which concerns this baby – the window. Aka the anti-privacy device located conveniently above the place that we do our most private business.
It’s kinda ridiculous that we haven’t done anything to it sooner, considering the window is nearly a straight shot view to the neighbor’s house. It’s not like we live right on top of each other – heck, we’re not even sure they can see much from this distance (we can’t see anything in their tiny far-away windows) but it’s still just a little odd to see this whenever we step out of the shower or whenever I’m standing up doing my man business.
So to get some privacy coverage while maintaining maximum light in the room, we decided to frost it using our tried-and-true frosting film technique (we’ve had luck with this stuff from Home Depot). In this instance this was a $0 project for us because we already had all of the supplies on hand (we had some leftover frosting film, but normally it’s about $19 for a giant tube that can do a bunch of windows and even large glass doors). Oh and it bears mentioning that this window has mullions update: just learned they’re actually muntins (those white criss-cross things) that are encased between the glass, so they don’t stick out. So although it looks like we would have to cut 12 rectangles of frosting film, we just needed two since these are sneaky interior ones.
You’ve seen us frost the side door in our current house this way and we gave a more thorough tutorial when doing the basement windows of our old house. So rather than rehash the step-by-step descriptions again, I figured we’d mix things up and take you through the process with pictures and captions only. Here goes nothing…
And now for the big finish…
Feel free to click over to this post and this post for more detailed how-to-use-frosting-film instructions. Oh and I realize it’s a bit hard to tell in these pictures (since the window kinda gets blown out anyways), so here’s our best attempt at showing the difference via photos:
You probably won’t notice it in photos going forward, but just know that every time you look at pictures like the one below – it means we’re no longer putting on a show for the neighbors. Hooray for leftover frosting film and a zero dolla project.
Oh and you’ve probably noticed some additions to the top of the toilet tank. You can thank Sherry for that.
She brought in one of the potted succulents she made here and we DIYed that 7 art a while back (here).
She also threw down a little dish to catch the earrings she often forgets are still on until just seconds before hopping into the shower (she used to rest them on the toilet or the windowsill but worried they’d get lost). Now they have a spot to hold them hostage. You know her and drop-spots. They make her all smiley.
You’ve probably figured out by now what the “frosting” and “tanking” parts of this post title refer to. Any guesses about the sucking? Keep it clean, folks.
Let’s look behind curtain #1 for the answer.
It’s our new suction-cup-tacular shower storage. We opted to ditch our over-the-showerhead caddy because it was practically visible from the bedroom door. Yup, it was quite the eyesore. So we wanted to do something more subtle on this other side that would mostly be hidden by the curtain from nearly all angles of the room (we keep the curtain about one third of the way closed when we’re not actually showering… or two-thirds of the way open if you’re an optimist). So this stuff can all hide behind that panel of fabric, out of view (unless you’re standing in the shower looking at it straight on, like the picture above and below.
We’ve had mixed luck with suction cup storage before, but these guys from Bed Bath & Beyond had some sort of extra-strength locking system that gave us the confidence to give it a go. They have a hard outer-cup around the suction cup inside and you have to sort of swivel them to install them to supposedly lock them in place. So far, so good. Even with two steamy showers under our belts (they also stood the overnight test, which means we didn’t awake to the sound of crashing down in the bathroom).
We got two hooks…
…and two baskets (which also had the locking suction cups) for a grand total of $22 after handing over four coupons. Gotta love that BB&B lets you use one for each item that you’re buying and they never expire.
I know it’s weird to be excited about hidden shampoo and razor storage, but for a tiny room that we’re in at least five times a day, it really does make a pretty decent difference. The room feels less cluttered and college-shower-y.
Oh and a reader mentioned they had hanging baskets that were hung over their faucet that fell off the wall and turned on the water and covered the drain so their house flooded (so sad!) – so for safety reasons it’s best not to hang these over the faucet. We like the other side of the shower for them since they’re behind the curtain and you don’t get sprayed in the face when you’re grabbing stuff out of them.
So there ya have it: a frosted window, a spruced up toilet tank and some hidden storage sucking it up on the shower wall. All for twenty two beans.
Here’s our updated to-do list:
paint the walls so they have some contrastreplace the boob lightpaint the cream trim whitehang some bathroom-friendly artcraigslist the toilet and replace it with a classic white onedo something to add privacy to the windownix the ugly and cluttered showerhead caddy- remove the door so we can shave the bottom to allow for a rug/bathmat (and add a door stopper so it doesn’t squash the art)
- replace the border tile around the room (maybe in phase 2?)
- move the blue pendant light to hang centered in front of the window
- replace the floor tile down the road (just to break things up since there’s so much of it)
Anyone else have a favorite privacy method for the window in their bathroom? Or a go-to item for the top of the toilet tank? Or a perfect solution for storing all of their shower necessities?
Psst- To follow this bathroom sprucing project from the start, check out this planning post, this painting post, this light-swapping post, this art and trim-painting post, and this toilet-updating post.
