Make a Wishing Well From Scrap Wood
2 Materials
$5
2 Days
Easy
Over time we have amassed a decent amount of scrap wood. Some from pallets, some from junk piles, and some from other projects that had seen their end. Believe it or not… this is the first project that we’ve ever done that contained pallet wood, at least to this extent. We decided to take all of this scrap and make a wishing well to hide a sewer clean out in our side yard.
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Here is the video showing how we made it from start to finish.
We spent a decent amount of time getting all of the wood from the pallets we had just how we wanted them. We removed all of the nails of course, and then ran them through the thickness planer several times.
I had some old used pieces of 2×4 laying around that someone had given me that I think were part of a makeshift bunkbed at one time. We used these to make the frame of wishing well, which was basically just a large box. We spent some time drilling and countersinking holes, countersinking since we were eventually going to cover them with some of the pallet wood.
The whole box or inner frame was basically just two square frames sitting on top of each other with 2x4s at the corners and two 5 foot posts running vertical on the inside that the roof will eventually rest on.
Once the box was done, we created some corner trim out of some of the nicer pieces of wood from the pallets. These were various hardwoods, not sure what kind though.
Once those were in place on all 4 corners, we started adding the slats in between the corners to make the siding of the wishing well. We spaced these out with a small piece of scrap wood that just happened to be laying on the table.
Once all the sides were sided, we made a top ledge out of a piece of 1 by pine that came from the bed frame. A simple ledge, but effective.
Since this was a build it as we went type of project and wasn’t planned out, making the roof was a bit of a struggle. We found the angle we wanted with the bevel gauge and got it marked out and cut. We attached those to the inside of the 5 foot vertical uprights and the scabbed over them with a scrap piece from the pallet wood. The top was cut to a point to match the angle on the outer arms and then we ran two pieces of the pallet wood over top of both of those angles, basically making a super generic truss.
Once both of those were done, we cut a couple pieces of scrap plywood to match, with a little overhang and...
then slapped some leftover roofing on it.
I did build a box that sits down in the empty space that holds a plant, and we attached another length of wood under the roof to hold a hanging plant. All in all it was a pretty quick and easy build and it does the job of hiding our cleanout fairly well. It took us about a day and a half to make it and cost us no more than our time and whatever hardware we used.
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2 comments
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Great looking wishing well and a super solution for a coverup.
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