The fake rock dilemma

A big thanks to all of you who gave me ideas for the fake rock dilemma. I thought I’d give you an update and get your opinion on what I think I may do with it.

First, we’ve made the decision to not replace the fence. So we’ll be pulling up the posts in the next couple of days before we have our dumpster removed. Keith was able to pull one out with his bare hands, so that tells you how sturdy they are (NOT)!!! The fence was part of my dilemma as the fake rock was only about a foot away from the fence. With the fence no longer being an issue, I don’t have to worry about that.

So here’s the big reveal on the well head. To be honest with you, I was thinking it was a round well head, as that’s what one of our neighbors’ well head looks like. This is what ours looks like.

Most of you know I’m from south Louisiana, and this looks like it belongs in a cemetery, doesn’t it? It’s a rectangle! Who knew?!?! To give you a perspective of how HUGE the fake rock is, here you go!

Since we’ve got the dumpster for a few more days, we’ll take the sawzall and cut the fake rock into pieces and be done with it. We won’t get to our well-head project for a few more weeks probably, but honestly the well head looks better on its own than with the rock! And the rectangle works well with what I think I want to do.

We do believe that the fake rock functions as insulation and protection for the well head, so we need to make sure whatever we do serves well for that. We also need the well head to be accessible should it ever need servicing. Several of you suggested landscaping around it, but that wouldn’t keep it insulated and I understand you need to be careful about keeping anything with deep roots away from it. Keeping all of that in mind, I had seen something which I thought might work, but it was for a round well head.

Not bad, right? But it’s not round, it’s a rectangle. My sister Susan found something similar which we should be able to adapt to a rectangle, and I think it will work well.

This is a little more rustic than I’d choose, so I’ll probably use pressure-treated plywood rather than slats attached to pressure-treated 2×4’s. Then I’ll paint it all white. If we ever need to, we’ll be able to take the top off and access the well, but otherwise we would have an attractive planter.

One other thing I wanted to accomplish with this was to put some house numbers out by the street. Today there’s a small piece of wood with our house numbers which is attached to the fence, but obviously that goes away with the fence. So I am thinking I could kill two birds with one stone and attach house numbers to the planter/well head cover to look something kind of like this.

I hope that gives you an idea of what I think will work well. Give me your opinions, folks! I love them!