After finishing my death march of painting all of my fence in a single year, I had another project to tackle: The toy box in the pool area that we use to store pool toys and floats.
It started out as a recepticle for my young children’s outdoor toys. You know, big plastic trucks, various balls, a wiffle ball set, a batting tee, a big ball-with-handle for bouncy rides, plastic lawnmowers, and so on. As it was built to hold large toys and with the thought that young boys might climb it, I built it strong. And, let’s face it, fine furniture at Nogglestead, at least the things I build, are really just two by fours screwed together (see also the record shelves I built five years ago). Although the toy box had some two by twos and one by threes screwed on it as well for some reason. Aesthetics? Extra stability? Who knows.
Well, my boys outgrew the outdoor toys, so I painted the toy box red and moved it to the pool area where it could hold the pool toys, noodles, floats, balls, dive toys, and such.
Over the course of a decade, the dripping toys made their mark on it. I noticed that the base of it was rotting at one side. So I thought I would bang out a couple of boards and replace them and repaint it.
Oh, but no. The rot was not just the end of the boards on the bottom, but also the framing holding the walls to the sides and the smaller boards at the bottom as well.
So my youngest and I completely took it apart, cut down the rotting boards, and rebuilt a new similar structure from the remnants, and painted it red again from the same can of paint, and:
It’s smaller, but that’s okay. Even though I’m personally spending more time in the pool these days–I try to hit it once a day, but that’s fallen to only a couple times a week this month–it has lost its enchantment for the boys, who hit the pool four or five times a day the first summer we let them swim without us. I have been told that the oldest got into the pool for the first time this year last week, and the youngest has let us drag him out there a handful of times. We haven’t had anyone over to swim in a long time. Maybe once last year?
So it might be the last time I deal with the pool fence and certainly with this toy box.
And, I am pleased to say, the garbage men did not balk at a little scrap wood in the bin. Which is another story in itself.
But what shall I do with this small amount of red paint I have remaining? Put it back in the garage for the next round of garage cleaning, which is on track to be a multi-year project.
