Wheelbarrow + Rain Chain = Cute Drainage Solution

Hello! Wow, long time no hear from me, huh? Well, I can explain, sort of, but I'll tuck it away at the end of this post. Last month we got a TON of rain, and while we managed to put up rain gutters the year before... we never put downspouts, which are kind of important!  I wanted to share this idea today because when I HAD the idea, I researched the interweb to see if others had done it. I like to see if others have any tips/shortcuts before I jump into things.  Since I couldn't find any, I figured I'd better throw it out there..

See we have this one little problem area, where a lot of water hits.  Take a look:

We recently put down the rocks, to try and stop the muddy splashes. This is a weird spot, you can see the rain gutter on the left... well it's lower than a portion of roof that sticks out past it - making this, the lowest point, in the middle of the back of the house. NOT GOOD for drainage, who's idea was this? We are on a hill so this just seeps into the dirt under the house.... fun....Also, a standard downspout can't go here because this window is in the way:

See? Disclaimer: Don't make fun of our rain gutters, we put them up in a hurry and home depot only had these plastic ones that I intend to replace someday when I am covered in cash. For now it's function over fashion my friends..

Anyway - We had to think of some way to get the water out from back  here. Originally I wanted to collect the rainwater since we live in drought country, but the logistics got out of control on me and a storm was fast approaching... that's when we ran into a wheel barrow at the Re-store in Santa Cruz...

Fifteen bucks! It had a flat tire and was actually a dark blue before. We grabbed a sample of paint at Home Depot & did a sloppy paint job, because we want it to start aging ASAP.

I hung a test chain from the rain gutter so we could position the wheel barrow accordingly.  Here's the idea, we needed a raised collection system (enter wheelbarrow here!) so there would be enough water pressure (by raising) to funnel the water out from the back of the house.

I rummaged around the plumbing section at home depot and found these, which a standard garden hose can attach to:

Perfect! The piece on the left will go through the wheelbarrow, and the piece on the right would attach to it. As luck would have it, our wheel barrow had a hole in it at the lowest point, which I just stabbed at with a flat head screwdriver until it was roughly the right size to fit only the piece that needs to go through. (Small end of the left).

 Like so...

I used just some leftover clear caulking we had that I knew would be waterproof. It's OK if it leaks a little, we are just trying to get 95% of the water out of here.  Here's the under view:

And THAT is where a garden hose will attach. The garden hose will run along the back of the house, buried & hidden, to the front where our water will flow away.

To hang the rain chain, I used a simple L bracket above the rain gutter opening:

Then we hung the chain! I got this rain chain on Amazon (Click here to check it out) but accidentally got a SHORT one. Works fine for this spot, but if you are buying, double check the length!

The plan for spring is to bury a few pots in the gravel, so plants can overflow out of the wheelbarrow. They won't get flooded, since the wheelbarrow is funneling the water away faster than it can fill.

Wear and tear already! How cute..  So the rains hit before we could fill it with gravel, and we got some MAJOR clogs in the hose.  Once the storms passed, I was able to clear the clogs & we filled her up. This much gravel should act as a filter & keep those leaves out:

That's it, pretty simple with very few snags along the way.  When the rain flows down the cups you can watch from inside that little bedroom.. so neat & peaceful.

OK, so where have I been? Well, a few things happened.  Balancing normal life, the Etsy business, and the house projects - I used to get this guilt all the time that I needed to post more, or I hadn't done a post in X amount of time.  I realized I wasn't doing projects so much to enjoy them, but more to be able to post more projects, because that was the "norm" and what you were "supposed to do". Which is just adding an unnecessary amount of stress to life, and that finally felt silly (for me).  Combine that with the discovery of this major trash talking website after the whole Young House Love breakdown happened...ugh.  I was kind of blown away by this site you may have heard of called "GOMI" or, "Get Off My Internets".  Holy... Crap... it was page after page of people tearing apart popular bloggers and I felt completely discouraged. Their style, their projects, their personal life. I didn't find my own blog on there, but I found a lot of blogs I DO know & love, and it was heartbreaking. It was one of those situations where you want to look away, but you can't.

So I took a breather to see if I wanted to keep going or call it quits.  And If I did keep going, how to go forward.  I finally decided to keep going, and to adopt the "slow blogging" style, which is focused on quality not quantity.  This works on all fronts in  my opinion, while I will undoubtedly post less often, I'll post when it feels right.  When I have something to share, rather than rushing to have more posts per week. Some people can post great quality posts on the regular, and I admire them! I just have to face that I can't.  Blogging has been really fun and I've made a lot of friends along the way, and I like to think I have a good idea now & then to contribute to internet-land.  So from here on out, crock pot style blogging, I guess. And I'm happy with that.  I'll still be posting little updates & tidbits now and then on facebook, pinterest, and Instagram. Thank you all for your great support & feedback, I love seeing your projects.  Keep in touch buddies & keep creating!

Love,
     Jesse

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