Tires are a material I really love. Free, versatile and fun. So when I saw this Pinterest post I knew I had found an ideal sandbox idea. So I started collecting tires from a local tire shop. The first step was cleaning them. I used simple dish washing liquid and a car scrub brush. Then I cut the ones that I needed to cut in half. I did this with a linoleum knife Like this one
I painted all of the tires with regular spray paint. I just bought cheap stuff from Wal-Mart.
I used about 2 coats per tire. The larger tires required an entire bottle of spray paint. Now, some of the tires did not take the paint well and flake something awful. I’m just living with it.
Next I laid out my tire pattern and dug holes for the halved tires. I did cement these tires in. I then stacked the whole tires, filling each with dirt as I did so. I was ramming dirt into the interior of the tires but even so there has been some sagging where I did not fill them enough. I’d suggest using a sledgehammer. I found the tires to be a great way to keep Daughter entertained. She wasn’t able to walk at this point and wasn’t very good at standing. The tires were perfect for helping her with this!
Son was just entertained.
Once I had my tires stacked and ready I laid landscape fabric on the ground, tucked it into the tires and began adding sand. It took a lot of sand. I had bought 6 bags to start with and it barely covered the bottom of the sandbox. I think we are about 20 bags in. This would work great if the stupid dog seen in this picture didn’t keep digging in the sandbox.
Anyway, the sandbox has been working well. We have had bug issues. Black Widow mostly. I have to check everything before I let the kids out to play. I am going to fix that issue with cob this year.
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