Another Epic Project

This past weekend, a new project had been assigned to papa. The back yard was now taking shape, our original idea of a nice space for the whole family has of course been completely reworked to make the back yard a nice space for Liam and his demands.

To fit in with this vision, a sandbox was needed. We drove over to "Holzmarkt Tuebnigen" and purchased a nice wooden sandbox with a lid. Then we stopped by another place to pick up a liner and some gravel for the surrounding zones. I lugged everything downstairs and we were ready to get started.

Here are the materials, neatly stacked and ready to get started.
The spot to place this new fun land had already been carefully selected and we had not had grass or patio placed there for just this reason. However, it has been a month since the great dirt clear out and there was plant-growth a plenty to be cleared out.
This was a job for the mighty Claudia. She pulled out all the greenery while I got to work on the sandbox building and heavy lifting. 250kg of sand and gravel is an awful lot to lug around. Luckily I am mighty.

To get on top of this phase of the job, Claudia used her gardening implements:
In the meantime, I was to attack the sandbox assembly. This looked like a job for my old buddy Steve the Screwdriver. Note my new summer haircut, it was only hours old at this point.
I assembled the sandbox without too much trouble, and Steve served me well as usual. Here is the sandbox frame as it developed.
By this time, Claudia had finished with the defoliation of the spot and was ready to hand the shovel over to me.
Next I had the surprisingly challenging step of digging out enough dirt to hold the sandbox and gravel, making sure to get all the big lumpy rocks out. Little people will not have fun if they dig down and get a lumpy rock. That shovel and bucket were not the ideal tools for the job, but it worked OK.

I put the frame of the sandbox in the deposit.Next, I put the liner in the bottom. I was surprised that the sandbox liner seemed to be made of a sort of felt-like material and not something like plastic. I suppose if it was plastic then the sandbox would collect water and be a bit of a mudpit. I guess you learn new things with every new project. For example, our shovel is named Trevor.
With all this in place, the next step was to put the sand and gravel in the correct holes and then give Liam a shout for a test run. I did not have to shout too loud, he was actually underfoot the whole time "helping." His toy drill was instrumental in the assembly process, and the tiny blue shovel you see in the sandbox was used to help take away some of the earth.
The final verdict... success. Here is an image of how the "Family space" has become very much a "Liam's outdoor domain," You can also see the final phase of the picnic table here, which I stained last weekend.

The swing hanging from the balcony was put up by Claudia while I was digging in the pit. She was also put to work creating leisure space for our tiny overlord.