Thrift Store Bookcase = Awesome Sandbox!

One of the many new challenges to renting a home is making things that are not permanent. Such was the challenge with making a sandbox. I previously had one at our old home that was almost dug into the ground.

For this project I actually did a little Pinterest research. I found other creative souls who had made sandboxes outof repurposed bookcases which I thought was a grand idea. I set off for the local thrift store to see what I can find. I ended up with a fantastic bookcase where the back was buckled out and almost missing which they were trying to get rid of for a mere three dollars.  Here's the bookcase with just the back knocked out as I brought it home.

As an experiment I bought some of that plastic coating paint which I used as a base coat for the entire bookcase. I thought that this would make it a little more weather resistant although in Florida that makes things a little difficult.

The plastic coating paint did give it a unique texture that made me feel that it was actually going to resist the elements a little bit better than if I had not used it.

Then I looked in the garage for what colors I already had his first spray paint and Vivian actually decided that she wanted pink and green. Once I started painting the green I realized that painting pink on the inside would make it look like a watermelon this is probably sparked by the pink paint being actually called "watermelon".

Then I did what I had done previously in the mountains which was to staple landscape fabric on the backside of the bookcase even though I wasn't putting this on the ground I thought that this would actually add a little bit of protection from the sand seeping out etc.

The end result is a fantastic deep sandbox that Vivian absolutely loves I think it should last a while I used five bags of sand and that seem to suffice. While the recommendations on the play sand are geared towards making you buy more I actually thought I might need 10 bags luckily I didn't go with that.

So for a total of $15 plus for the sand +3 dollars for the bookcase +6 dollars for the landscape fabric (and I still have a whole lot of that leftover) we have an awesome sandbox.