Wooden Pond

...over the past few years, discarded and broken-down shipping palettes have become solid gold for the design community, voraciously recycling the distressed wood into anything and everything...the demand for hobo chic wall coverings and chaise lounges doesn't seem to show any signs of ebbing...

...sometime mid-August 2011, while standing along the cornrows of a failed crop in our much-too-shady backyard i got the idea of adding a cool water feature to the lot...and in accordance with everything else i do, a simple solution was not an option, naturally...

...presenting the back-yard pond made of recycled and reclaimed palette wood (well, a significant part of it, at least)!

in March i started digging a 2 tiered hole - 7 by 5.5 foot and 2.5 foot deep, followed by the foundation - contractor grade wood reenforced walls lined with a cotton base-coat and a 15 by 15 foot 1/32 inch waterproof foil...

...May...

if i said that i drew out a comprehensive plan for how this project was going to unfold, i would be lying...the blueprints where in my head - constantly evolving with every glitch and set-back. at this point, anything i was going to add to the structure could not be secured with nails or sharp screws (jeopardizing the waterproof properties of the foil).

i built the wall segments with even planks (resembling mid-century kitchen wainscoting) secured to wooden studs via smooth headed corrosion proof nuts and bolts. each segment was then coated with waterproof, environmentally safe (and very expensive) yacht-hull enamel. the pond was assembled on the lawn adjacent to the hole and lowered (extremely carefully) into place.

...June...

pushing on, about 400 pounds of river (or pea) pebbles blanket the pond floor and planting shelf. the running boards and seating shelves are solid ceder planks waterproofed with the same stain used on classic wood-hull Cris Craft motor yachts from the 1930s.

by August i added the landscaping (including these really cool blue glow pebbles), the whiskey barrel, waterfall pump (950 gal/hr) and 575 gallons of water...

...the mason jar lights (recycled) went in last week...