I’ve been itching to set up a basketball hoop in my driveway but hated the concrete surface. Too hard on the knees, you know? So I got this wild idea to build a portable wooden court section.

First thing I did was raid my garage for scrap wood. Found three warped plywood sheets gathering dust behind the lawnmower. They were kinda beat up with some water stains, but free materials beat buying new any day. Hauled them out and wiped off the spiderwebs with an old rag.

Grabbed my circular saw and cut all plywood into 4×4 foot squares. Made sure to wear goggles – learned that lesson when sawdust got in my eyes last summer. Ended up with six panels total. Measured twice, cut once… mostly. One piece came out crooked but figured it’d work for the edge.

Now the tricky part: making them lock together. Took my router and carved tongue-and-groove edges on all pieces. First attempt was too shallow, kept coming apart when I stepped on it. Redid the cuts deeper after blunting two router bits. Got sawdust in my shoes during the process – still finding it in my socks!

For grip, I brushed two coats of that anti-slip deck paint from the shed. Used this nasty green color leftover from the porch project. Dried sticky as promised, though my brush strokes look like a toddler finger-painted it. While that dried, screwed rubber door stoppers underneath each corner as makeshift feet.

Tested it yesterday in the driveway. Tossed the panels together like puzzle pieces – actually clicked! Dribbled around for twenty minutes. The bounce feels decent, though I can tell the warped board needs replacing. Whole setup took about three hours from dragging out the wood to shooting hoops.

Best part? When rain started, I just popped the sections apart and stacked them against the garage wall. Took less space than our wheelbarrow. My neighbor laughed calling it “hillbilly hardwood,” but he ended up asking for the measurements to build his own version.