and thanks to a some pretty awesome pin-spiration over at small + friendly, a magical three hour toddler nap, and a superhero of a dad, margot now has the coolest sandbox ever.
this thing has a deck people. a deck! for dinosaur plays.
and this deck has a secret. when the play is over, it hinges back to become the lid of sandbox. so. much. clever.
we modified small + friendly's awesome plans a little bit, using one by sixes on the top instead of two by fours to cut down on the weight a bit (it's still super heavy--i can lift it, but i count it as a workout) and instead of the handle for the deck to rest on we had to use four by four legs. since our yard isn't level, we needed them to be different lengths, which you can kind of see in the picture above. and to keep them from sticking ten inches up into the air when it's in lid mode, the legs are hinged so the swing out of the way. engineered.
the sand box is about four foot square. the perfect size for toddler play and visiting cousins.
and for lounge chairs. margot didn't think that the deck chair belonged on the deck. she remedied that, despite her cousin's best efforts.
since saturday, the sandbox has gotten a lot of action, as you can tell from the many outfits in these pictures. i'm sure it will continue to be the most popular spot in our yard for quite some time.
fun fact, margot refuses to step in the sand without shoes on. in the second picture, she's barefoot, and standing on the deck. no amount of coaxing could get her in that sand until i suggested shoes and she got super excited. weird kid.
