It's finally assembled!

Stripping the paint off that wood took a lot longer than I first thought it would. I wound up going through 2 packs of sanding discs on the angle grinder. They were real rough-- only 16 grit! The discs came in boxes of 6, and they cost about $4 each. They made short work of stripping the wood, especially once I developed the right touch. Yes, I bought an angle grinder. Harbor Freight had a 4-inch grinder on sale for about $17. So that means I spent about $25 on tools and supplies. Well, I'll use the angle grinder on other projects, so I could justify spending the $17 as a cost of more than just this project. But for the sake of this humble blog, I'll include these costs in the total cost of my project.

Then my pal George loaned me his Makita belt sander. I blew through 2 2-packs of belts for that sander, and they ran me about $6 each. Again, once I learned to use the right touch, the project went easy.

Now, I couldn't compost the dust from when I used the angle grinder to strip the wood. That dust had the paint in it, and I wouldn't feel comfortable composting that paint (who knows what chemicals are in it?). But I did compost the dust from when I used the belt sander to do a little finishing. Good thing, too. My bin really needed some browns!

What else did I need to buy? I bought 2 boxes of premium galvanized exterior deck screws at my local Ace Hardware, as well as 2 4x4 Dougles Fir timbers. The screws and timbers were all $8 per, so the total cost there was about $32. I made all the wood cuts using a circular saw and blade I already own, so there was no cost there.

Total cost on items in this post:

• $25 for tools from Harbor Freight
• $12 for sanding belts
• $32 for wood and screws

And the grand total: $69!

Now, wanna see the finished product?



Stats:

• roughly 45 square feet planting area
• 16 inches tall
• walkway has 2 1/2 feet clearance
• no point in garden is more than 3 foot reach