Inside Volleyball

Tia volunteered our house for the end of year party for Kendall's volleyball team. As such, I had the need to get a court setup. We have plans for an outside court, but with the chance of rain still here, I decided I should plan on inside for now.

I had cemented a few posts in buckets a few years ago, but we found they weren't very stable. One actually broke and became a mailbox stand in Tia's horse playground. We had the other, though we needed something more stable. I planned on trying a combination of a tire and bucket a few weekends ago, but rain kept getting in the way.

Finally we had good weather this week and I got out there Tuesday at lunch. First I needed to get a tire.

We've had a bunch in the yard from previous years of hay storage, and I got one of the thicker ones. Then I started to put some rebar around the poles. I drilled a few holes and put cross braces, as well as some angled ones in the post.

I'd cut a piece of OSB for the base, and with that in, I added a few braces to support the pole and then started mixing cement. I'd bought 2 bags over the weekend and put them in, but realized I needed more. Fortunately I've had a spare bag in the garage, and ended up using that. 240lbs of cement + water in there.

The pole sat for a couple days and dried. It's seemed really stable, and Kendall agreed to help me yesterday get the court set up. After school I grabbed the tractor

I drove it over to pick up the pole, and had a hitchhiker jump on with me.

We moved everything into the arena and started setting things up. We unrolled the net and started to measure things. The court needed to be bigger than I expected, and took up a lot of the middle of the arena.

We tied the smaller pole to the frame and added the original poles that came with the net for some stiffness.

Kendall then started to mark off a court space. As you can see, it's big.

It ended up looking good and hopefully the girls enjoy it, and keep the ball low. The lights aren't well protected, so this can't be a regular thing we keep up there.

However we are looking forward and a little motivated, to get the outside court going. Need to remove the playset, mark off a space, add some dirt to level it and then put down sand. The hardest part will be a fence to prevent the ball from leaving the area.