DIY Bucket Well
One of my go to parenting strategies is to find as many ways to turn a no into a yes. Which includes playing with water in the backyard. Do I love the endless hours of independent play that playing with hose water gives me? YES! Do I love the giant puddles by the house and surprisingly high water bill when it gets left on for said endless hours of independent play?…NO.
This sound’s like a case for mom’s power tools!
A couple of years ago I was at an Early Childhood outdoor class with my daughter where they had a hand pump for the kids to use with their mud kitchen. Thiers was a metal bucket under a wooden tabletop with the pump attached to it. Genius.
When I set out to make my own, I knew I wanted the following features:
Must keep bugs, critters, and the majority of the mud cakes out.
Must have a stable surface to set bowls, cups, and toy animals on for washing.
Must be short enough that even toddlers can use it with ease.
Must hold a pretty substantial amount of water…since dumping buckets on the ground is half the fun.
It cannot look like an eyesore.
Not going to lie, sourcing the pitcher pump was maybe the hardest part of the whole project. It’s not a super popular item at hardware stores, so in my experience it was hard to find somewhere they were in stock. I ended up travelling to FOUR different stores before I finally snagged one. If you’re looking to save yourself a trip, you can totally get them on Amazon.
After that it was just putting the puzzle together! I ended up putting some metal window screen under the tabletop platform to keep debris and bugs out, and based off the amount of sand that still gets into the bottom I’d say don’t skip this step.
The end result has been HOURS of happy independent play. Our seven year old neighbor comes over every day to play with the water. I host a mom’s group and we had 13 happy kids from 9 months old to 7 years old playing with water for five hours.
Filling buckets and dumping them on the ground.
Filling watering cans to water my plants.
Making mud soup.
Making chalk paint.
Dumping it on themselves.
The list goes on.
The one thing I would do differently is use smaller boards to create more spaces. It doesn’t really bother me that water splashes off the tabletop. If that’s going to bother you, I’d recommend using 2x2 or 2x4s instead of 2x6 like I did.
So here’s how I did it…
Supplies:
half whiskey barrel planter (like this) or (like this)
20-25 gallon whiskey barrel liner OR a pond liner
pitcher pump (like this)
2 foot piece of pool hose or really any thick hose (like this)
threaded fitting to attach hose to pump (like this)
clamp to attach hose to threaded fitting (like this)
3′ x 3′ aluminum window screen (usually sold by the foot in big rolls)
10 feet of 1×6 wooden boards for top (I just used some scraps from our garage)
some 2×6 boards to reinforce top
T50 staples for attaching screen to top
screws for reinforcing top
hardware to attach your pump to top (I just used some long screws and called it a day)
Directions:
Gather all of your supplies
Place liner into whiskey barrel (I cut the lip off the one I bought because it was a little too tall. Once I did, the lip fit over the top of the barrel and covered the exposed cut edge of the rest of the liner below. I say do whatever works!)
Place 1×6 boards on top of whiskey barrel and cut to make a round top, leaving small cracks in between for water to drain through (Tip: place boards on the ground spaced the way you want them and place the whiskey barrel upside down on top so that you can trace the outline with a pencil. Then cut each piece with jig saw)
Place aluminum screen on top of whiskey barrel and cut it to fit the top exactly
Staple screen to boards and use screws and 2×6 boards to attach the top pieces together (be sure screws are short enough so they do not poke through the top) and drill hole into top for the hose that will come out of the pump(make sure you visualize where you want the pump to sit on the top)
Sand and smooth the edges of the top to make sure you’re not snagging clothes and giving splinters to little hands.
Attach the hose to pump by attaching threaded end piece to hose, clamping it to secure, then threading the hose onto pump
Thread the hose through the drilled hole. Use appropriate hardware to attach pump to top.
Fill whiskey barrel with water and place the top on.
You are all set to go.
The pump may need to be primed by pouring a small amount of water into the top of the pump before use.
Let me know how it works for you!
Cheers!
Rebecca
