Rain Barrel

On our path to "greener" land I thought putting together a rain barrel so that Meg could water her plants would be a nice piece.

Papa Smurf was able to get a nice sized chemical barrel to get us started. Hopefully it won't lead to Meg killing all her plants:) Two cans of plastic spray paint and voila! The lid was a table top Meg had picked up during one of her garage sale hunts. Very necessary to keep the vermin out.

Dad and I were able to manipulate the gutters so the water could dump right in. I drilled 2 holes. One for the spout, one for the overflow. You wouldn't believe how fast this thing can fill up during a storm!

I thought I was purchasing galvanized pipe but as you can see something isn't quite holding up to the elements. Depot guys are geniuses! In no way is that my fault:) I had to extend the spigot outward in order to get the watering can underneath.

The overflow heads right into the bushes. Still working on a "prettier" way to get that hidden.

Nate's Home Improvement - Plumbing

Our sink that the wash machine empties into began to back up quite a bit so I decided to investigate a little. There wasn't anything in the sink or blocking the drain so I had to start tearing stuff apart:)

Turns out most of the trap underneath the sink was disintegrated. A couple of the nuts had cracked, and part of the pipe that leads to the main dump had threads that had rotted away and it was leaking. What a mess!


I first relied on the local hardware store to help me out, Johnson's Hardware. They've been very helpful in the past but this time gave me the wrong size nuts. When I went back, they were very apologetic and helped me find the right stuff. Nice guys, always like going there. Wish they were bigger!

My next stop was to Home Depot after I found a few more parts rotting away. They seemed to be very helpful but sold me everything under the sun. Needless to say after a little direction from my coworkers I returned everything I could. Unfortunately because they don't sell small chunks of pipe and I drive a car, they had to cut it for me before I left which means no return:( Jerks.


Finally I got what I needed and was able to get it put back together. A new trap, rubber coupler, and some tape. So far, so good!