Alright folks, grab a drink 'cause this hose reel thing turned into quite the adventure. Started simple, right? Needed something better for the garden than dragging that crappy 50-foot hose all over creation. Saw a shiny 100-foot expandable hose reel online. Looked perfect. Bigger, better. Clicked buy. Mistake number one, trusting the pictures.

The Great Unboxing (And Immediate Regret)

Box arrives. Feels kinda flimsy already. Cut it open, pull out the reel. Plastic. Cheap feeling plastic. Like the kind that snaps if you look at it wrong. Thought "Okay, maybe it’s sturdier than it looks." Ha. Pulled out the hose itself. Felt weirdly light. Hooked it up to the spigot outside. First turn of the handle... water dribbles out pathetically.

Expanded? Barely. More like it just sighed and gave up. Looked like a sad, wrinkled sock. Definitely not 100 feet. More like... maybe 60 when it finally decided to puff up half-heartedly. Felt seriously ripped off.

The Battle Plan

Okay. Deep breath. Needed an actual solution. Decided to build my own reel, proper like, for a real, heavy-duty 100-foot hose. Rummaged around the garage. Found:

• An old busted wheelbarrow tire – perfect rim, no tube.
• Some leftover 2x4 scraps from the fence job last summer.
• A decently long metal pipe – no clue what it was from originally.
• Hooks and brackets... because who doesn't have a random hook collection?

Wiped the dust off, got my drill and some rusty bolts ready. Felt kinda hopeful.

Operation Frankenreel

Stood the wheelbarrow rim up on its edge. Sawed the 2x4s into legs – shorter ones for the base, longer ones for the uprights. Measured wrong twice. Kicked the scrap pile. Got it sorta straight finally.

Bolted the uprights onto the base pieces. Wobbly. Added diagonal braces from even smaller scraps. Still a bit wobbly, but it'd hold. Drove a bolt right through the center of the tire rim, then stuck the long metal pipe through that hole. Pipe stuck out both sides. Wrestled the pipe ends into notches I hacked into the tops of the wooden uprights.

Sweet victory! Could spin the rim! Now, needed the hose to actually wind onto it. Bolted one end of my new heavy-duty hose to the wooden frame right near the spigot connection. Tried coiling the hose onto the rim... awkward, heavy. Hose didn't wanna play nice.

Added two hooks to the rim itself. Idea was to hook the hose end there after using it, then spin the reel handle (which was the pipe sticking out) to wind it up. Simple. In theory.

The Reality Check

First real use? Pulled the hose out fine. Watered stuff way at the back, no dragging a heavy hose across the grass. Awesome.

Then time to rewind. Oh boy. That first pull of the pipe/handle? Felt like dragging an anchor. The hose was heavy, the rim scraped against the wood uprights despite the bolt. Sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

Muscled it through, grunting like a cave troll. Got it halfway wound. Hose slipped off the hook. Swore loudly. Put it back on. Kept winding, hunched over, sweating. Finished. Stood back. My masterpiece looked... functional? Like something rescued from a demolition site.

But it worked. Hose stowed, took up way less space on the patio than just dropping it in a pile like I used to. It spins, mostly. It holds the hose, definitely. The expandable monstrosity? Gathering dust, probably going back if I can find the stupid receipt.

Lesson learned? Sometimes the shiny store-bought junk ain't worth the cardboard it's shipped in. Got sweaty, used up questionable garage junk, built something ugly but solid. Feels better than that first cheap reel any day. Even if my back's complaining a little.