Down and dirty? Used wood pallets can get you up to a 4 foot cube of bin-ness. It's a fifteen minute project. Hold it together with ordinary concrete tie wire (or such) and just place it anywhere out of the way unless you're the sort of person who likes the exercise of turning it all the time. Plant vines or viney flowers for eyesore-ness.

Or, you can just pile the stuff up without a bin, if the yard size and shape make that feasible. It'll rot down in its own sweet time. Without the extra exercise!

Simple like mine (to start!). I got some from the city for under $50. They aren't huge, but do the job. I also got a tumbler from the dump for $5. Tumbled, then tipped into the bin to finish.

There's plenty of reading around here to figure out your idea of composting. Hot, cold, lazy turning often, tumblers, NOT, burying into the garden, vermicomposting......so many ways to do this!

A fun and easy book to get you started is "Let it Rot" It gives you basic ideas for composting, or just read around here to get ideas! It's not rocket science! Have fun! Nancy

check craigslist. I got an Earth Machine brand compost bin for $20.

Here are some ideas. Use the pallet lumber but those bins made by standing pallets in a square don't work that well. Too open and stuff falls out.

http://s241.photobucket.com/user/blaamand/library/Compost%20Bin?sort=2&page=1

You will find a lot of ideas and whether the bin is an eye sore or not depends on the eye of the beholder. Some will think the pallets suggested are nothing but eye sores while others like them. A simple container/bin is about 12 feet of 4 foot high tot lot fencing made into a circle. some think that commercial composters are often too small and too expensive.

This composting tutorial has some ideas, http://sarasota.ifas.ufl.edu/compost-info/

kimmq is kimmsr

If you make a wire mesh bin for no-turn composting you can wrap it with reed fencing to make it less conspicuous.

I use the sides of an old swimming pool

All good ideas above.

You can certainly compost in the shade but I just moved mine from the shade into the garden area. IF you plan to turn it a lot you might want some shade but then I wouldn't make it higher than 3ft.

Using the wire fence is cheap n easy or use hardware cloth if you are concerned about rodents. Both are easy enuff to pick up and move to start another pile.

Multiply 3.14 (Pi) x desired width = how much fence.
4ft wide by 3ft high should be plenty.

Sun or shade makes little difference, it should be located based on convenience to the garden (i.e. sources of material), appearance, and not too close to the house.

Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. I actually think lazygarden's pic of the wire mesh one is the least conspicuous, but others might think if you can see the 'waste' it's ugly, so they might like a pallet bin or a black plastic bin.

Thank you for all the feedback guys and gals!

I think what I'm going to go with is a bin that is of 2x4 and 1x6 construction. I will stain it and try to incorporate a table off the back side so I can keep it down by my garden.

Table is a good idea tho you might want to have it separate.

IF you are building the bin and money is no object consider making it out of Trex as it will last longer.

blue goat writes; Use the pallet lumber but those bins made by standing pallets in a square don't work that well.

I have used this technique for 15 years and it works well. I estimate that I've created about 10-15 cubic yards of compost using wood pallets. Use tie wire to quickly assemble/disassemble the bin. I cut one 4 x 4 pallet in half to make a half-high front. I line the insides of my compost bins with old leaf bags and I cover the top of the compost with another used leaf bag to hold in the moisture and ammonia. When it's time to turn the pile, it's easy to remove the front and one side and then fork the compost into a new bin.

In my experience, there is no better way to make a compost bin than to tie 4' x 4' pallets together with tie wire.

I also use pallets. I disassemble pallets and rip down the slats to fill in between slats. I build three sided leaving it open for ease of turning.

After about 30 years of using the exact same five bins made out of a 50 foot roll of 4 foot wide, 2" by 4" welded wire fencing, I just purchased a new roll for about $25 - and I'll probably still use the old bins. I cut the 50 foot roll into five 10 foot pieces. I cut between vertical wires so I have 1 inch tabs. I only have to hook it loosely in 3 or 4 places. These give me a great volume for composting, they look neat. I usually use two for just ground up leaves so I always have cover material when I dump my kitchen compost bucket or other stuff I don't want left out to the flies, etc. Three working bins keep me in a lot of compost - my process takes about a year per bin. When I empty out a finished bin (like this time of year when I am doing a lot of planting, etc., I take the empty fence ring, set it back up, and turn the next oldest pile into it (taking the fencing ring off to make it easy), sprinkling with water as I go if it needs it. I can then turn the newest pile into the empty ring, and the cycle continues. I always have plenty of ground up leaves, but I know I could make a lot more compost if I had more "greens," but I don't pick up grass off my lawn (mulch it in), and I already use everything from the kitchen and coffee grounds from work. This method looks neat and tidy, for the most part - just brown like the ground leaves, I set them in a horseshoe fashion so the ground leaves/cover material is on one side, then bin I'm filling, then stages of turned and completing compost, until at the opposite end of the horseshoe I take out the completed compost. I have seen nothing easier, and I can guarantee that no wood will last more than 30 years in constant contact with moist compost.

In my humble opinion pallet bin are the only way to make good compost fast with little effort

I built a 4 foot cube of 2x4s and 1x6s, and wrapped the sides in chicken wire. What i've discovered, however, is that even though I'm reasonably tall, I can't still it as well as I'd like, so my project for next week is to add a door to one side with a couple hinges and hook and eye fasteners.

Adding some more detail; fill the compost bin with fresh material to near the top of its 4 foot height, but don't continue to add material once you've fill it. Once it has been filled once, you'll have to create another bin for new material. An active compost pile will begin to settle and shrink down. Resist the temptation to 'top it up'. Adding material to an existing compost bin extends the time it take for it to finish, and it can cause the material near the bottom to become compacted and prevent it from finishing. Ask me how I know this. :-\