Sand is the greatest kids toy ever! My kids will play in sand for hours and hours. For years we have had a little plastic one with a dome lid, and the kids would all squish in it. But no more! This summer my girls and all their friends can be in beachy bliss right in our backyard! Woo hoo!
To build the frame:
We got these red landscape beams from the Home Depot, on sale for $1.89 each.
We needed 14.
We cut 2 in half to make our rectangle frame. (This part of our yard is horrible-the tree roots bulge out of the ground and we had our shed there where all the grass is dead. Huge sandbox is a great solution for these problems. : )
We stacked the beams 2 high. Then, we (he, that is) drilled through both beams at all the ends and corners.
Next, we hammered a piece of Rebar through the drilled holes and into the ground.
This is what holds the whole frame together.
Then I laid down some heavy duty filter fabric and had 2 1/2 yard of sand delivered and dumped onto our driveway.
At this point, we had to be pretty quick, I couldn’t keep the kids off the pile! And holy crap- sand is heavy! I got started shoveling and wheelbarrow-ing and completely burnt out just in time for Jay to get home and take over. He moved much faster than me. : )
Lots of wheel barrow loads later:
KID HEAVEN!!
Later in the day there were 7 kids playing in there and all 7 had plenty of space and tools to be perfectly happy. YES!!!
We now have our backyard fully fenced and something to keep the kids happy back there! Oh man-I am one excited mama!!
Oh! If you’re thinking “that sounds really messy,” you’d be right! Absolutely messy, I’ll be doing A LOT of bum dusting, sweeping, and vacuuming, but I’m sure hoping it will be a fair trade off! Maybe a follow up post at the end of summer? See if I still love it?
Linking up at:
I love this already have half the stuff to do this making a 500-700 square foot along what I call the sledding hill area of out yard. doesn’t have to be level to be a beach 🙂 I do childcare and cannot wait for this fun addition this summer so I can pop up the canopy and let me play!
I’m lovin this!!! I saw this last night and just got back from home depot with all the supplies. I hope to get my husband on board.