tires – Peacock Orchard

Our little playground did not survive the winter well. The swing set is badly damaged and the slide supports broke completely off. My children LOVE sliding and I heard a lot of “Fix it Mommy!” from my oldest. I also had this giant pile of tires that was not going to be able to remain in the playground because of black widow problems. So I killed 2 birds with one stone and used the tires as the structural support for a new hill slide.

As my husband used the tractor to cover the tires in dirt I stripped the slide of any remaining screws and supports and hunted down some tools. Armed with a variety of shovels (my helpers always require their own shovels!) and a rake we went to work grading the hill and installing the slide.

Son was energetic in his digging but daughter was much too distracted with the chickens scratching around near the fence. I think I found the right angle for the slide.

Hmmmm. No. I think it is much too high.

Better! Though I’m sure the poor sea creatures didn’t like their trip down the slide.

Now off to hunt for rocks to be used as the steps. I loaded Daughter into the wagon and Son energetically hopped onto his tricycle.

Success. I was able to grab quite a few rocks of unknown origin, the one Daughter is sitting on was the largest I could carry.

I rocked the stairs up but I just don’t like it. That large piece of cement rip rap is not working for me. What to do….

That’s the ticket. Gravel on the top of the hill and the large cement rip rap has become a designated art piece. The kids loved painting it! While they were busy painting I was busy terracing the back side of the hill. I don’t want a rain storm to cause massive erosion. Now I have perfect planting terraces.

I spent some time thinking about what I wanted to plant here. Grass, of course. But I want plants that are going to repel bugs and rodents as well. So I believe I have settled on a few varieties of mint, lemongrass, feverfew, lavendar and safflower. We shall see how they grow!

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 for the sidewall, and a metal cutting blade on a regular circular saw for the tread.

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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Tag: tires

Playground slide transformation

Tire Sandbox