Sometimes doing-it-yourself is honestly more difficult and more expensive and less lovely than taking a short-cut. Case in point is the raised garden bed we wanted to build in the back yard. Last year, we had a very haphazard garden. Clear out a space. Throw down some seeds. See what grows. Eat what’s recognizable. This year, we wanted to take it up a notch. Inspired by this post on Apartment Therapy, I sent the link to Brett and asked if we could get the kids involved and make this a family project one weekend. Of course, my fearless husband replied, Absolutely.
Above is the image from Apartment Therapy and the image in my head of how these beds would turn out. Uh-huh. Right.
Fearless husband and I go to Home Depot to buy supplies. While walking through the garden section, I see a kit. (I love kits.) Treated cedar wood. Grooves already cut. Hardware included. $79.99. Done!
Or maybe not. Brett has this thing about not doing things the easy way. I am not sure where this comes from. Pride? Stubbornness? A manly need to saw and nail things? Who knows. So we headed to the lumber aisle to check out the treated cedar 2x4s. At $15/each, making this bed would cost us about $150 including the hardware. Not to mention the days hours we would spend sawing and measuring and assembling. The sweet afternoon family project I had in my head was about to be destroyed. After explaining that the kit actually was just as good, twice as easy and half as expensive, my lovely husband saw the wisdom of my ways. Grumbling, he put the kits (we bought 2) into the cart and talked himself into a better attitude.
And within about 90 minutes, we had the area cleared and the boxes assembled. Easy peasy. We ordered two yards of soil delivered to the house and have started planting! We even had time to head to the beach for the afternoon where the girls made these amazing sand castles. We will keep everyone posted on our bounty. (Hopefully!)
Love the beds! For future reference (or in case you love these so much you want more), I thought I’d share our find for building cheap raised beds: cedar fence pickets! They are super inexpensive, and rot and insect resistant just like the expensive boards! I think we spent about $15 on each of our large beds using that method.
What an excellent idea! Thank you for sharing. We may just want more!
Brandy
Super fantastic. I have always considered the raised garden bed and your DIY project proves it’s achievable and doable to me. And your pictures give the feeling that you all had so much fun. Above all, your amazing ability to sort through the advantages and disadvantages of starting with a kit and coming to agreement with your he-man. Your story brought me real joy.
Hi Abby!
So glad you like it. It was definitely a fun project and we look forward to its bounty! You need to come see it soon!
Xo,
Brandy