Our backyard has never looked great. When we bought the house, I was fully aware the yard was a fixer upper. It has sat unchanged and only minimally maintained for decades. In contrast, the inside of the house was in pretty good shape, and had a lot of improvements done recently. I preferred this. I’m not a big fan or expert in flooring, but I do love a good and personalized garden. I wanted a yard where instead of ripping out decent landscaping to get what I wanted, I could just start from scratch.

One of the eyesores in our yard (besides the meatball shrubs that were promptly removed), was an old shed in the back. It had a bit of rustic charm to it, expect for the fact that it was filled with thirty year old garbage and leaning about twenty degrees to the west. At first, I couldn’t even comfortably get in the shed because the lean prevented the door from opening all the way.

Doors are easily removed, so I popped off the door and started sorting things. There were some cool finds in the shed–the most interesting was a set of vintage bikes. A lot of it was simply old garbage that should have just been taken to the dump rather than stored in a shed for decades. There were blanket and other fabric things covered in cat urine, old motors, air conditioning units, cardboard, jars (and not cool ones), torn up flooring, and even a sink. Everything in the shed was placed outside the shed for eventual disposal, free-cycling. or re-purposing.

Joe spent a Saturday ripping off old boards, and finally, knocking the shed over. No more shed. Happy day. Except…

We are now living in a junk yard. At least before all the garbage was cheerfully disguised as a rustic shed. Now it just looks like garbage.

Our city does spring clean-up with dumpsters and double garbage days in a month, and we are planning to dispose of much of the junk then. We also want to re-use some of the wood for the chicken coop, which is why we torn it down now and not later. I’ve already free-cycled some items (I had about 5 people in a half hour clamoring for an old window and screen door), and we will spend the next month sorting garbage.

I thought I was a gardener not a garbage sorter, but sometimes the jobs just overlap.

Our first real project in the yard was building a sandbox. I’m still waiting and observing before I tackle a lot of other projects, but I knew a sandbox would get immediate and prolonged use. I still remember playing in our large sandbox while I was growing up. My siblings and I would build volcanoes and elaborate landscapes. and then fill it up with water from the hose.

I choose a spot that wasn’t too close to the house, so that the there was a lower chance of tracking sand in. It had to be easily observed from inside, so the kids could go out and play and I wouldn’t have to come with them. And it also had to be away from anything prickly (and we have a variety of prickly things throughout the yard).

After choosing a spot, I just stared digging a bit to get an idea of what I wanted. To make the sandbox, I wanted to use material we had on hand. So I gathered some of the various items we have been saving for such projects and formed a good idea of what I what we were going to do.

And it kinda sat in a big pile for a week, because I can drag my feet when it comes to heavy digging. Luckily my husband is a harder worker than me, and in just a short amount of time he had it dug out and ready for sand.

We use logs for the sides (found on site), and sheet piles for the rear retaining wall. The sheet piles were from a construction job my brother-in-law was working on. (Construction garbage can be very useful for landscape projects.) The logs were secured with stakes and screws.

Then we dumped in a truckload of sand. We had a bit too much sand for the box, so we might have to adjust later on, but it works for now.

Like I anticipated, this did get immediate and frequent use. My oldest son had hardly ever asked to go outside; I’m always pushing him to go out and play. But he asks me to go outside all the time now, and he and his little brother sit and the sandbox and do what little boys do for hours.