Sandpit - what's a good buy?

[Nelle]

Clam shell is fine for us too, but ours is undercover, and I think that's pretty key in keeping it mould free, making sure all the rain is kept out.
We have a brush and shovel near the back door and Riv gets a good brush down before coming inside. Still, I agree, the sand everywhere is the price to pay for their time of fun.

[prama]

thanks so much girls...
the way our backyard is, it will be out in the sun a bit. i had a look at the bunnings website and there's a DIY sandpit with sleepers. doesnt look too hard, and DH is very handy so we might go w this option. we'll get a shade too..

[Pandora]

If you are going to use treated pine, make sure you seal it. The chemicals used to treat it are not really healthy for kids or animals, but if you seal or paint it with something non toxic it should be OK.

[rubibaby]

we bought one of the clam type sandpits a year or so ago and ds1 loves it. he is in it everyday. i am waiting for the day when he will grow out of it, but i actually think he has a couple of more years left in it. we bought ours from toys r us, but they are everywhere and they are very affordable. plus when they grow out of them you can use it to grow a veggie garden.

[Erin_25]

we put up a shade sail & built our own under it after having enough of the "clam shell" sand pit. They are ok for one small child I think....but DS was getting bigger & having friends over so we wanted something they could all play in. Though we were also renovating our backyard so was easily done.

I found the clam shell annoying as if you did forget to put the lid on & it rained or the sprinklers went on it was forever to dry it out as it doesn't drain. Also we could only have ours on lawn at the time, so always had to shift it or the lawn under it would go dead.