Yard Plotted to scale, promise

make it yourself

Leaking Barrels

Three drums standing and tipped on the grass, with something green glowing out of a split in one of them. Built from plastic trash cans and a couple of cans of paint, which survive the weather better than anything sold as a prop barrel.

  • $78 ish
  • 3 hrs start to finish
  • total beginner
  • 2' 6" tall when done

grab this stuff

What you need

  • 3× 32 gallon plastic trash can with a lid, no wheels $45
  • 2× Plastic-bonding spray paint, yellow $14
  • Flat black and rust-brown craft paint $5
  • Green LED puck lights, battery, 3 pack $14
  • Painter's tape and a sheet of card for the stencil you have these
  • All in $78

Tools, and that is it

  • A craft knife or a jigsaw
  • Scissors
  • A drill, for the drain holes
  • Something heavy for each upright can: paving slabs, bags of sand or buckets of gravel

here we go

How to make it

  1. Buy cans, not barrels

    A 32 gallon plastic trash can is almost exactly the diameter of a 55 gallon drum and about two thirds the height. It already has the horizontal ribs a drum has and it is weatherproof by design. Get the plain kind with no wheels, and keep the lids: a drum has a closed top.

    oops-proofing

    Avoid anything with a wheel housing molded into the base. It is the one detail that says trash can rather than drum, it is on the side you will end up facing the street, and you cannot paint it out.

  2. Or find a real drum secondhand, which is better and often cheaper

    Check Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for a used 55 gallon food-grade plastic drum or a rain barrel. Car washes, breweries, bakeries and food plants go through them and sell them off for ten to twenty-five dollars, usually blue, usually filthy, which for this build is a head start rather than a problem. A real drum has straight sides, so it needs none of the paint tricks in the steps below and just reads correctly on its own. Wash it out and paint over the blue.

    oops-proofing

    Do not buy a NEW rain barrel for this. They run sixty to a hundred and twenty dollars each, which is more than all three trash cans together, and once it is painted yellow and covered in rust streaks nobody can tell what you paid. And check what was in it before you buy: food-grade only, and never anything that held a solvent or a farm chemical, whatever the price is.

  3. One can, one drum. Do not join them together

    Three cans, three separate drums. Do not stack them or fasten them to each other: a trash can is tapered and a drum is not, and every way of joining two of them leaves an outline that is obviously two trash cans. Stand two upright at different angles and lay the third on its side, tipped so the open end faces the walk. Push the upright ones an inch into the grass, which hides the narrow base and settles them at the same time. Keep the lids. A drum has a closed top, and an open can reads as an open can. If a can came without one, stand that one upside down instead so its closed base is what shows.

    oops-proofing

    The taper is the only thing that gives these away, and paint fixes it, not carpentry. Two horizontal bands where a real drum carries its rolling hoops will tell the eye "parallel sides" far louder than the actual outline tells it otherwise. That is the next step and it is where the effort belongs.

  4. Cut the split before you paint

    Pick one upright can and cut a rough gash about eight inches long in its shoulder, up near the top, then push the edges outward so it gapes. That is where the light comes out, and one split across three drums is plenty. Drill a few small holes in the base of every can so rain drains instead of collecting.

    oops-proofing

    Tear it, do not slice it. A clean straight cut looks like a slot somebody cut. Score it, then flex the plastic until it splits along the score and leave the edges ragged.

  5. The paint does the heavy lifting

    Two light coats of yellow, and the can must say it bonds to plastic or it peels off in sheets in the first cold week. Then the part that matters: tape off two horizontal bands, one about a third down from the top and one a third up from the bottom, and paint them a darker shade. Those are the rolling hoops every steel drum carries. Two level horizontal lines read as parallel sides, and they do more to kill the taper than any amount of building would. Once that is dry, dry-brush flat black round the ribs and rust-brown in streaks running straight down from the rim. Straight down, because vertical streaks say vertical sides. Aim for about twenty per cent coverage and stop.

    oops-proofing

    New and clean is the failure here. A pristine yellow barrel reads as a prop; a filthy one reads as something that has been sitting somewhere it should not have been. Use a level or a strip of tape wrapped right round for the bands. A hoop that wanders up or down as it goes round the can draws the eye straight to the taper, which is the one thing it is there to hide.

  6. Tape the hazard symbol, never freehand it

    Cut a trefoil out of card, tape it on and spray through it. Put one on each barrel, all at different angles and one of them half wrapped round a rib so it distorts.

    oops-proofing

    A hand-painted radiation symbol reads as a hand-painted radiation symbol from thirty feet away. It is three wedges round a circle and the eye knows the proportions, so any wobble is obvious. Ten minutes with a knife and a piece of card is the difference.

  7. Light it from inside the split

    Take the lid off the split can, stick the green puck lights to the inside wall opposite the gash so they throw across it, and put the lid back on. The drum stays dark and the split glows, which is what makes it read as leaking rather than as a painted object with a lamp near it. Battery, so there is no cord running out to the drums, and the lid comes off in a second when they need changing.

    oops-proofing

    Do not put a spotlight on the outside. Lit from the front you can see it is a trash can. Lit only from within the split you see a shape and a glow, and the eye fills in the rest.

  8. Weight every upright can

    A paving slab, a bag of sand or a bucket of gravel in the bottom of each can that stands up. An empty plastic can weighs almost nothing and catches wind like a sail. The one lying on its side can usually stay empty.

one more thing

Run barrier tape from the drums out to a stake or two and the whole thing becomes a cordon rather than an object. That is the cheapest upgrade available and it is a couple of dollars of tape. Set them down in the grass at slightly different angles, not squared up to the house. Nothing about a spill is tidy. Everything here stores inside itself: lift the lids off, nest the three cans, and it takes up one corner of the garage until next year. If you want the version with green ooze pouring out of the split and a skeleton arm coming out with it, that is Overflowing Barrels. Same three cans, one more afternoon, about thirty-six dollars more.

where it goes

Layouts this one lives in

Same build, any yard shape. Here is where it lands.

  • → Toxic Waste on a Wide Shallow, No Porch Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.
  • → Toxic Waste on a Narrow Shallow with Porch Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.
  • → Toxic Waste on a L-Shaped with Projecting Garage Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.
  • → Toxic Waste on a Deep Narrow Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.
  • → Toxic Waste on a Corner Lot Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.
  • → Toxic Waste on a Split-Level or Raised Ranch Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.
  • → Toxic Waste on a Sloped or Terraced Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.
  • → Toxic Waste on a Small Urban Postage Stamp Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.
  • → Toxic Waste on a Circular Driveway Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.
  • → Toxic Waste on a Long Driveway, Rural Frontage Something leaked. Drums on their side with green light coming out of the split, tape across the walk, and whatever came out of them still moving. The one theme that scares people without a single ghost in it.