The New 5-Gallon Bucket Book

A valuable resource looking to sustainability repurpose 5-gallon buckets. This book includes well-illustrated, step-by-step directions for projects that range from camping and storage to gardening and animal care, as well as a few projects that are just for fun! Clear instructions also include a level of difficulty rating as well as a rating for how expensive supplementary materials will be.

The New 5-Gallon Bucket Book by Chris Peterson has a ton of full color photo and instructions for so many projects to use 5 gallon buckets. Some are silly, but some are quite useful, and a great way to upcycle these containers.

Some really interesting ideas for a 5 gallon bucket. I plan to make a couple of the things myself. If you are crafty or even if you aren’t you may be interested in this book. I plan to buy one for my son and see what he comes up with.

A great book on how to cheaply (or even freely) and sustainably create tools, furniture and other items from 5-gallon buckets. This book would be especially useful for homesteaders, gardeners, or just plain animal lovers, as many of the creations shown skew that way, but there's plenty for anyone to enjoy.

If you've ever wondered what to do with an empty 5-gallon bucket, this book is for you! Chock-full of do-it-yourself projects that are categorized into sections Around the House; Into the Wild; Critter Care; Play Time; and Backyard Bounty; you are bound to find one that interests you.

Peterson gives you all the information you need to complete each project successfully. Each project has a What You'll Need box that lists tools, materials, time required, skill level, and expense rating. His step-by-step detailed instructions (with photos) are easy to understand and follow.

This book appeals to my love of finding ways to repurpose and reuse items to lower my footprint. I think it might appeal to you as well.

My thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group (Cool Springs Press) for allowing me to read a review copy of the book. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and are freely given.

The New 5-Gallon Bucket Book is a DIY and tutorial manual full of ingenious ideas for sourcing/using/repurposing 5 gallon plastic buckets by DIY maven Chris Peterson. First published in 2015, this reformatted second edition is due out 25th May 2021 from Quarto on their Cool Springs Press imprint. It's 144 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats (ebook available now).

The projects are of varying usefulness or practicality. Most of them look like what they -are-; items made from 5 gallon HDPE buckets. The tutorials are grouped roughly thematically: things for use in the home, camping/outdoors, pet/livestock, toys, and gardening. The upcycled items are truly creative and make good use of the particular strengths of the buckets, especially the more utilitarian projects. I'm a little iffy on some of the home decor uses (they're about as attractive as macaroni art - but there are a lot of people who like macaroni art, so *shrug*). The gardening and outdoor tutorials are really packed with do-able, suitable, utilitarian projects which I will definitely be using. One of the tutorials is for an "upside down" tomato planter, and my personal experience using a similar layout some years ago was not an unqualified success. The plants spent a majority of their growth trying to compensate for being suspended upside down and didn't bloom or fruit as vigorously as their earth-bound siblings. I suspect like most DIY books, it's a mix of varying degrees of success and experimentation is key.

Each of the tutorials includes tools and materials lists, time / difficulty / cost estimates, followed by step-by-step tutorial instructions. The guides are easy to understand and clearly photographed. Tools and supplies will be easily sourced or readily available in the average home.

Four and a half stars. As the author says in his introduction, "the best things in life are free". I would recommend this one for library acquisition, homeowners, self-reliance smallholders, DIYers, recyclers, low-impact living folks, maker's groups, cooperative gardens, and similar.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I love the idea of this book. So many people get things in 5-gallon buckets and then use them for storage afterwards, or (heaven forbid) just throw them out. This book is really cute and gives lots of ideas on how to reuse old buckets.

Thanks for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for honest feedback. When I first saw this book was on offer, I thought it was 1) unique, 2) modern, and 3) interesting. As someone who lives in a rural area, I own a lot of buckets (lol) and use them mostly in gardening. Therefore, I also have a lot leftover and could use them for other stuff! So, that was my main motivation in approaching this with some curiosity.

This book offers ideas for 5-gallon bucket DIY projects, hacks, and upcycles. There are a variety of themes in the projects, including 1) "around the house"; 2) "into the wild"; 3) critter crate; 4) play time; 5) backyard bounty. Some of the project ideas that stood out to me the most were: deer feeder, critter crates/bird feeders, etc., the gardening ideas (the scarecrow is cute LOL), the strawberry planter is good, and the rainwater collector. Some are a bit "out there" but for the most part, all pretty cool and good ideas. You can get a bucket for $3 and try something out if you like the look of it.

Good layout, easy to understand illustrations. Decent amount under each theme. Overall, interesting book.

This is a really handy and creative book. I wouldn't have thought of all of these uses for a 5 gallon bucket. I will definitely be saving some of these as future uses.

So many useful and different uses for the lowly 5 gallon bucket. everything from air conditioners and washing machines to a scarecrow. Great resource.

Some very interesting ideas in there for DIY lovers.
To be honest, I expected some simple recycling tips but actually there are a lot of very different ideas and you do need to be quite good at DIY at some require a certain knowledge and tools.
The ideas are very good and range from garden uses to children's rooms.
The only downside is that some of it is just not what you want as a look in your house.
I know recycling should come first, but it does look a bit rustic, which makes me not want to apply some of the ideas which are otherwise very good.