Sandpit

We’ve been making a sandpit for the boys for MONTHS!!! We actually started it not long after we moved into our house, about 6 months ago. Before we moved into this house, the area that is now a sandpit used to be a pond.

It looked great when we saw the house at a viewing. During negotiations, the man owning the house asked us if we were planning to keep it that way. We said no (bit dangerous for the boys) so he asked if it was ok if he took some of it with him. Ok by us….. but the problem was that he left it a terrible mess :(

See the size of the pond….. it’s actually a large corrugated metal tank buried in the ground. He left the tank, and threw all the rocks into it. We had a MONSTER job, pulling out all the rocks, then digging the large metal tank out of the ground. To make matters worse, he’s cemented the bottom of the tank, and it was buried in very solid clay soil. HARD WORK!

Unfortunately we did not think to take pictures of the beginning part of this adventure. We removed the mini corrugated metal fence around the pond area, dug out the tank, pulled out all the plants and weeds,  flattened the soil and started to build the sandpit.

 

See the wooden frame. We bought the wood from Bunnings (local hardware megastore), and the brackets and cut it to size. Placed it in the ground – it was a LOT harder than you’d think to make sure it was level.

Then the weed mat went down, and another frame on top. Now we have a structure for the sandpit…

Sandpit by the shed. See how big it is! It is 2m along the shed, and 3m along the fence. Massive pile of dirt we had to remove! 

Now the fun (awful!!!) job of getting the sand into the sandpit. We live on a sloped block. We got almost 2tonne of sand delivered to our driveway. We had to carry it up to the sandpit. Up 15 steps!

Bucket by bucket. It was too heavy to carry in a bigger bucket, and the stairs are too steep to use a wheelbarrow. It just tips out. 

Tracie, going back for another load.

The boys got very excited when we finally got some sand in the sandpit.

Ben

Sal, raking out the sand

Ethan  

Fast forward a couple of months, and all the sand is in the sandpit and we have made a large wooden lid to cover the sandpit when not in use. See it resting against the fence behind Sal? The boys love playing in their sandpit, but at this stage it’s still not finished!

See behind Ethan – there is still ugly dirt and weeds between the sandpit and the shed & fence. And the lid is not secured to anything.  

Fast forward a few more months and our sandpit is FINALLY finished!!!

The lid is now on hinges, and now is chained to the fence when open, to prevent it blowing closed in the wind. We have also painted the inside with blackboard paint. The boys love their sandpit. The like to drive their trucks in the sand and jump on Mummy’s sandcastles. We have also put some rocks around the rear borders of the sandpit – just so it looks better than dirt and weeds!

Now we only need to wait to the surrounding grass to recover and grow back. Hopefully by next summer it will be looking good.

Stay tuned – next project is a shade cloth to cover the sandpit. On a sunny day it’s VERY HOT in the sandpit.