DIY Kiddie Car Wash

I’m so excited to share this month’s #Lowe­sCre­ator post! This DIY kid­die car wash is absolutely per­fect for sum­mer out­door fun, easy to build, and some­thing the kid­dos absolutely LOVE!

As a Lowe’s Cre­ative Ideas Blog­ger, the theme of June & July’s posts cen­tered around sum­mer out­door projects. Last month, we built a fun out­door game (kid-friendly DIY Lad­der Golf). Every­one loved it. So, we knew we wanted to build some­thing else for some out­door fam­ily fun this month.  We had some grandiose plans. But, with the birth of Baby Brother sooner than we expected, we needed to make some­thing sim­ple instead. The big boys have been hav­ing to enter­tain them­selves for peri­ods of time a lot lately & they so badly want to play out­side (but that’s dif­fi­cult when it’s 100+ degrees). So, inspired by The Idea Room’s (fel­low #Lowe­sCre­ator) PVC sprin­kler and the Lowe’s Cre­ative Ideas Kids’ Car Wash Sprin­kler, we decided to make one and it’s SO fun!!!

Here’s how we made it…

Sup­plies:

• 8 10-ft. pieces of 3/4″ PVC pipe
• 11 PVC T-joints
• 7 PVC elbow-joints
• 4 PVC cross joints
• 4 PVC caps
• 1 hose connector
• 7 pool noodles
• 5 sponges
• col­ored nylon rope
• plas­tic table cloths (you could also use trash bags)
• drill & 1/16″ drill bit
• scis­sors
• hack­saw or pvc cutters
• per­ma­nent marker

For the dec­o­ra­tive por­tion, you could really use a vari­ety of sup­plies. We pur­chased every­thing from Lowe’s (even the pool noo­dles), except for the table cloths which I hap­pened to have on hand from past birth­day par­ties. To build the actual sprin­kler, the cost is less than $25. Any addi­tional cost comes from what you buy or have on hand to dec­o­rate with.

Instruc­tions:

• The first step is to cut the PVC pipes (some­times they will do this for you at Lowe’s). Cut 3 3-foot pieces, 26 2.5-foot pieces, 2 1-foot pieces, and 3 6-inch pieces.
• Use one of the 6-inch pieces & attach it to the hose con­nec­tor. For added sta­bil­ity of that con­nec­tion, we glued it together with PVC glue.
• Assem­ble the structure.

You’ll use the joints to con­nect all the 2.5-foot pieces together. The 3-foot pieces are the hor­i­zon­tal con­nec­tors at the top of the frame. The 1-foot pieces get capped off. The, remain­ing two 6-inch pieces go at the top of the front, with caps on them and are used to stick the pool noo­dle on them. Here’s an image to help visu­al­ize:Once the frame is built, you’ll need to drill holes in your struc­ture. This is a bit of trial and error. We started with fewer holes & added more (after the water pres­sure was so strong that our struc­ture blew apart!). To drill the holes, we used a 1/16″ drill bit. We ended up with about 4 or 5 across each 3-foot piece, 2 or 3 in the ver­ti­cal 2.5-foot pieces, and we drilled a hole in the top of the caps on the 1-foot pieces.

Once you have the holes & water work­ing the way you want, then dec­o­rate! Pool noo­dles (cut in half), nylon cord, a few sponges, and some plas­tic table cloths. Mak­ing some DIY sponge balls to attach would be super fun too! The “Kid­die Car Wash” sign is just a folded plas­tic table cloth writ­ten on with per­ma­nent marker. We punched holes in the cor­ners and attached to the frame! This is the spot to have fun & be cre­ative– there are so many dif­fer­ent things you can do!

Then, all that’s left is to turn the water on and have fun play­ing!!! A total blast of out­door fun that is per­fect for sum­mer! The kids loved going through on var­i­ous “vehi­cles” and just run­ning through them­selves! So, so fun! For more fun out­door DIY ideas, check out this roundup of #Lowe­sCre­ator ideas. And, if you need to do some out­door clean­ing, you can enter to win a great prize pack from Lowe’s and P&G through Fri­day (8/3).

For more great ideas, check out Lowe’s Cre­ative Ideas on FB and Lowe’s on Pin­ter­est.

Dis­clo­sure:  I am a mem­ber of the Lowe’s Cre­ative Ideas Cre­ators & Influ­encers Net­work and receive a Lowe’s gift card to com­plete my projects.  All opin­ions & expe­ri­ences are entirely my own.

Linked to: *Today’s Cre­ative Blog, *Tater­tots & Jello, *Tidy Mom, *Flamingo Toes, *Sun­dae Scoop, *Skip to My Lou, *Mak­ing Lemonade