A Fun DIY Alternative To A Wishing Well
Wishing for something other than a wishing well!
This is not a story about a Wishing Well. It could have been, in fact, we were very close to it. However, we came up with another idea to cover the old Well and pump!
Back in the day, this Well was the source of water for the house. Eventually, a modern concrete cistern was installed in the backyard and that’s still what we use here today for house water. The old Well remains and is fantastic for watering outdoor plants. When we moved here we rigged up an electric pump to pull water and connected a garden hose for convenient watering.
This was the view of the pump from inside the house having morning coffee - not ideal.
Although the Well was covered by a concrete slab and wasn’t a safety issue, we wanted to build something that covered the pump. We talked about building some kind of Wishing Well to cover the pump but we couldn’t agree on a design. We had our “eureka moment” when we thought of using a wine barrel to cover the pump on top of the well, this way we could use it as both a planter and a cover that the pump would fit (hopefully) into!
We love wine presses and barrels and find lots of uses for them so we were pretty excited about this idea!
Old Wine Press
Wine Barrel Hand Pump
Wine Barrel Staves Swing
Wine Barrel Staves Chairs
There are lots of used wine barrels on Kijiji in this area and next thing you know we had two for this project.
A few handy jigsaw moves later and a few hijinks …
If Caelan can fit the pump will fit!
Check out the gorgeous colour! Smells great too!
The pump fits!
All of the components on the backside.
The hose is hooked up, just connect the pump electrical cord to the outdoor plug on the house and turn the tap!
While a Wishing Well was the more conventional option to cover pump and Well, we’re so happy with how this turned out and it was much easier than a Wishing Well would have been.
When styling the barrels for the final photo we couldn’t help but see how cute they are next to the ‘68 Fiat 500 - super cute!
Ready for glass of Creekside Cabernet Merlot while we water!
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