When the playground was redone, we invested in these great big wooden boxes. We had the kids put their sand toys in them but there were a few issues. First, the hinges often broke and then soon became rusted. Second, they kept getting filled up with sand. Third, I noticed the kids kept tossing in the items and they buckets were getting dented.
My solutions were: 1- take the lids off and replace them on the weekends (so it would prevent excess sun damage. 2- dump them out every so often, and 3- figure out a replacement option.
Well, putting the lids back on was a hassle, and fortunately we were able to finally put some sun shades in- California direct sun is no joke! Also, there were times I came back to the school and the lids had been taken off by older kids playing in our space.
So this summer, I researched shelves to buy for outdoors. I quickly discovered that they were REALLY expensive and more often than not, were not available the way I wanted. The shelves I kept coming across had boards too close together and I wanted sand and air circulation.
Then I discovered https://www.instructables.com/id/Wooden-Shoe-Rack/ and knew I would have to make them.
see the result: