So . .. what can I do to use that instead of it rotting? Well, the kiddos love to play dress up and have puppets and all, so why not make a stage. A simple, easy one since tools are not plentiful around a geek house.
I found several 3 1/2 inch screws and the drill bit and the hack-saw and got to work.
There were 2 4x4's of roughly the same length as the width of the large board and then a 2x4 that was only a few inches longer than the length of the board. Phew! Not too much cutting to do at all.
I measured the 2x4 against the board and then cut it off with the hack saw. Then placed the 4x4's on either side of the board and marked spots for those, then spots for the 2x4, so they would flush together at the front area of the stage. Using the drill (thanks goodness we at least have that LOL), I put 2 screws through the top of the stage and into each 4x4 - one at the front of each board and one at the back. Then, I screwed the 2x4 into the 4x4's with 2 screws on each
end.Phew . . . hardest part done :-)
Then, I went on a paint-finding adventure in the garage (can you say, save too much stuff) and found an interior, non-oil light blue color and painted the sides and top with 2 layers each (dried for about 12 hours in between) - I even had some kid help for the painting, teaching them how to use even, smooth strokes and they both put in a very good effort. We let it dry for 24 hours and brought it in the house to decorate with water-based acrylics. I let the kid's decide on all the pictures I would paint and also had them painting at the same time.
Then, after another 24 hours of drying, I sprayed the surface with a sealer to protect the paintings from feet and such.
The project itself was so much fun to do together and now it's a very popular part of the dress-up/ pretend play room, which will eventually be turned back into my daughter's room - she's been sleeping on brother's bunkbed for awhile now.
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