Custom Pool Safety Rope for $6!

Ok, so our house has this beautiful in-ground pool that we love (in fact, the pool was one of the main reasons we went for this house).  We throw a Puddle Jumper (<--- by the way, this is the best children's life jacket I have ever seen.) on our toddler and she swims around like a little fish.   My only problem with this is, she seems to be very attracted to anything even remotely dangerous....like swimming into the deep end.  Now, she doesn't swim unsupervised, thus doesn't ever make it to the deep end, but constantly having to fight with her about it became quite tiresome for me.

I started looking into the safety ropes for the pool and was kinda shocked at the prices on them!  It was around $30 - $40 for them and the floaties that came with it were tiny and cheap looking.  Definitely not worth the price in my opinion!

So one day I was at the Dollar Tree (I love the Dollar Tree, by the way....) and I saw some blue and white packages of laundry line.  It was plastic and it even looked like the "rope" you get in those $30 - $40 sets from Namco.  It was a bit on the thin side, but I thought I could do something about that.  I picked up two packages of the rope and 4 pool noodles with which to make my floaters from.

I started with the rope.  The packages are 70 feet worth so I was thinking I would braid 3 strands together to make it more substantial.   Remember, when you measure your pool to get the length of rope you need, make sure to add a few extra feet on.  Braiding will shorten the rope as well as tying the knots. 

I tied the middle of the rope to a knob on a closet door and began braiding. If you don't tie it off and start with a shorter side, it's quite hard to braid a 20 or so foot rope (Doorknobs work great for this!).   Once you get one side done, tie off the end and lightly melt the knot a bit with a lighter.  This will ensure that the knot doesn't some loose at some point.  Then untie, and retie it to the knob using the already braided portion as close to the end of the braid as possible and continue braiding the other half of the rope.

Now for the fun part!  I cut the noodles into relatively similar lengths with a butter knife and began putting them together with some more laundry line.  You can glue if you wish, but I wanted to keep them simple and water resistant (glue + chlorine just seemed like a bad idea to me).  You can get super creative here and use all sorts of color combinations and different floaties!

For the triangle (or stacked) shaped ones, I simply stacked three pieces together and "threaded" the rope through the center of the noodle until they were all held together as I wanted them.   Think:  In one side and out the other, then in a different noodle and so on....make a triangle with the rope on either end. 

For the "wrapped ones" I simply split two pieces of noodle down the middle then wrapped them around a different colored noodle and tied with some of the rope. 

If you find that your floatie slides around on the rope too much, simply stuff a little piece of noodle into the hole and it will tighten things up ( I had lots laying around because I'm terrible at cutting noodles with straight ends....). You can also melt the knots holding the floaties together for extra holding power, just be careful not to melt or catch fire to the noodle or melt the knot so much the rope breaks.


So, here it is, my pool safety rope for about $6!  (And I have some pool noodle and rope left over for repairs or other projects.)

Note:  I've had mine in the pool for a few weeks now and it seems to be holding together beautifully and it is an effective deterrent for children seeking the deep end!

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